5 comments about Shelter.

1. I saw this book at my brother's house and immediately knew I had to buy it for my husband. It is a high quality reprint of an older book and has that "60's" feel. Much excellent info and lots of great pictures. Very eclectic. We got it specifically for the info on Geodesic Dome houses but there's plenty more for shelter freaks.



2. I bought this book when I was fourteen years old and it blew my tiny little mind! Now that I've lived a bunch of years in the design field, and I take it off the shelf, tattered from three decades of intense study, it still blows my (now even tinier) mind. Mr. Kahn has done us all a great service with this book that goes beyond architecture to higher values and has a spirit that leads by example. Sure it's got some crazy hippy parts, do with that what you will. But a deep devotion to what you make and why; it's all here. I'm thankful for this inspiring work.



3. Throughout the 1960s and `70s, hundreds of unwashed, longhaired youth from around the world descended on the open foothills around Placitas, New Mexico, and established multiple communal hippie settlements. These youth had read of the Placitas scene in national magazines and counterculture books, or heard about it from other hippies; they were idealistic types from all around the world, and they came to the area to try to raise their own food, escape The Man, indulge in free love and mind-altering drugs, and live communally in tents, geodesic domes, adobe shacks, and experimental homes they built themselves out of plastic and scrap metal.
   This book, "Shelter" documents their bizarre housing experiments in wild detail. It also documents curvaceous mud homes in Africa, riverside huts in Yugoslavia, thatched huts in Ireland, homes in busses, homes in caves, dome homes, homes made of car parts, homes carved into mountainsides, homes made of hay, tipis, barns, gypsy tents, and more.
   If there's a strange kind of housing, you'll probably find it in here, and you'll probably be inspired by it.
   "Building this house was more of like feeling where you went as you started working with it, you know, the material and just playing it from there," said one Placitas hippie interviewed in this book. "...It's like three dimensional sculpturing, you know, we just got into building a house out here that's like jewelry. ...OK, let me put it this way, the inspiration like as we move along through it, like I found it in [Stanley Kubrick's film] 2001, where the dude had finally split out of the satellite and was heading towards Jupiter, just as he was coming in, what they had done was they had used different types of film, infrared for one, and just taken a plane and flown over Grand Canyon at a high speed, low, what is created you know, is in some respects synonymous to what the house is, you know, and certainly our cell structure in our body is synonymous with that...."
   As you can probably tell, this is not "Better Homes and Gardens" or even "MTV Cribs." It's "Shelter," and it's a trip.



4. I studied architecture in Australia and dragged my feet through the course. That is until a mate suggested I check out this book.
   It liberated me.
   
   Here was a bunch of common folk who met one of the most basic needs of all humanity - shelter.
   
   So much of what we encounter in our 'western' enlightened age is alien and regulated. The materials that we commonly use in buildings & infrastruture is devoid of any life or connection with the earth. They are not in or close to their natural state. And even if they are, there is so much regulation and stipulation on how we are to use them.
   
   But this book gives you hope, a chance to dream. It shows buildings as art forms, useful & practical but completely expressive of the owners they serve. They are not bound by regulations and conventions. This is craftsmanship not industrialisation. They are made from from natural unrefined materials which in essence connects us to the earth, which we all belong to. From dust we came, to dust we will all return. The beauty of nature is your own home.
   
   This book is filled with ideas and ways in which people have often 'escaped' from the life draining cities to a more peacuful and harmonious way of life. It's superb photo's, hand illustrations and even the way the book is laid out are a freedom in itself. This is one book you will not regret owning and will always find pleasure returning again and again to.



5. Now I don't know if I want to live in a tree, a yurt, or on a converted vehicle. This makes my 'normal' house seem quite ordinary. Drat!

No comments about Glitter Stucco and Dumpster Diving: Reflections on Building Production in the Vernacular City.

No comments about Magic Metal: Buildings of Steel, Aluminum, Copper and Tin.

No comments about Men of Iron, Men of Stone, Feet of Clay.

1 comments about Construction Specifications Portable Handbook.

1. Once again Mr. Stitt helps make sense of an all too often arcane subject. He starts w/ problems common to specifications writting & helps you on through how to create a set of specifications, efficient writting, why use a check list (he provides examples of both short & long formatts), master specifications, an introduction to CSI, thoughts about service level & how they effect specifications; then on to research, checking & common errors to avoid. As per Mr. Stitt's numerous other published work on the less glamorous & often overlooked aspects of creating legible, cogent construction documents, this book is a must have for anyone w/ a deadline & a set of specifications to write.

No comments about Visual Simulation: A Users Guide for Architects, Engineers, and Planners.

No comments about The Electronic Design Studio: Architectural Education in the Computer Era.

2 comments about Communication and Design With the Internet (Norton Books for Architects & Designers).

1. There are few professions that have as much potential as architecture and city planning to take advantage of the Net. This book is the best general introduction to the Web for people in the design professions. Cohen patiently explains the concepts in a way that his fellow architects can understand and apply. I was especially impressed with the chapters on participatory planning and design. This book is very well written and illustrated.



2. This is a unique book, catering to architects, engineers, land-use planners and other professionals in related fields. Although part of the book is about web-site design and site management issues (which is covered in many books), the author presents the information very well - in fact, the quality of the editing, formatting and illustrations is great - done with a lot of care.

   The chapters which really caught my interest were those relating to community planning - especially the one about participatory community planning. This is an application with a lot of potential, where 'the web-site' could unleash a number of other novel communication tools (e.g. environmental simulation - my area of expertise).

   I highly recommend this book to anyone involved in community/land-use development or resource management. It is a great source of ideas.

No comments about Low-Tech Light-Tech High-Tech.

1 comments about Out of the Woods.

1. This is the best book on the Segal style of self-building popular in the UK. There are three elements to the Segal movement: A practical building method for light wood frame buildings; An ecological approach to building; A track record of owner built communities. This book sticks mostly to the buildings.

   Segal built houses are essentially stick buildings made up of ring frames, raised like the bents in a timber frame building. As a structural type they would only be a footnote to post and beam or platform framed building, even if they took off in popularity. They nonetheless provide an attractive, light on the land approach that, aesthetically, is reminiscent of Japanese houses made modern (I suppose one might say Tudor also).

   When the book touches on the other themes of ecology and social housing it misses the mark somewhat for most readers, I suspect. These subjects are covered comprehensively elsewhere in the Whole House Book (also Borer and Harris), and the Self Build Book. These themes are also more contingent on local situations and views. For instance the idea that it is more environmentally friendly to burn oak hardwood than say natural gas, because trees when re-grown will be greenhouse gas net-neutral due to the trees' consumption of CO2, is mildly ridiculous. I guess it depends on whose lungs are downwind.