Customer Reviews

Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter

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After years of waiting, I finally held a copy of Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter by Lloyd Kahn in my hands. I have rarely been this enthusiastic about a book, and not just because I am in it!

Ever since his first publication of Shelter in 1973 (which I also contributed to), Lloyd has been collecting imagery and stories for this eventual sequel. Shelter, a black and white over-sized catalog of unusual building, has become legendary as a book of inspiration for several generations of free-spirited home builders. The fact that it is still in print after 30 years attests to the durability of its significance. This seminal book heralded the emergence of geodesic domes and strawbale homes, as well as the influence of vernacular building styles from around the world on North American architecture.

With Home Work, Lloyd has gone beyond the glory of his earlier work in many ways. Not only does it seem more comprehensive, but it is almost entirely in color. This is a sumptuous coffee table book that will likely not spend much time on the table, since it is so intriguing you just want to pick up and browse through it. Every page is chock full of fun, unusual, lyrical, quaint, artistic, humble, elegant, practical, colorful, whimsical, well-crafted, funky, traditional, and outlandish buildings that were lovingly built by the hands of those who reside there. All of this is presented with Lloyd's casual style of layout and commentary that is reminiscent of a scrap book. Many of the photos are actually collages of several exposures spliced together to create expansive murals.

Flipping through the pages of Home Work will take you back to the early day of hippie huts and forward to the cutting edge of natural building technology. The builders themselves are portrayed as lovingly as their buildings, with many profiles of fine craftsmen and women sprinkled throughout. In fact, the book begins by featuring the work of ten artisans who represent some of the best in this tradition of owner-builders. Then a whole slew of other specific homes are displayed in such a way that the lifestyle of their occupants is embedded directly within the imagery. This book depicts far more than architecture; it shows entire ways of life.

Half a dozen people who have dedicated their lives to the promotion of natural building are profiled, along with some of the fruit of their labors. It is in this section that my wife and I find ourselves, with a description of our earthbag/papercrete home. What an honor it is to be part of such a fine work of art as this book. We are in the company of Bill and Athena Steen, Catherine Wanek, Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley, and others.

Lloyd has included examples of a variety of world-renowned photographers whose work graces the pages with imagery from India, Mongolia, Togo, Indonesia, Vietnam, Venezuela, New Guinea, Greece, Hong Kong, Nepal, Bali, Germany, Thailand, and Turkey, among other places. The way these exotic places are merged with the more familiar North American imagery makes everything seem exotic, or in another way of seeing, it all seems quite normal.

There is a section of buildings that derive their inspiration from fantasy and whimsy. This includes the surprising and almost garish flying concrete work of Steve Kornher in Mexico, along with a sculptural home carved out of the Arizona desert created by Michael Kahn, Lloyd's cousin. A Nevada house made of recycled glass bottles contrasts with delicate tropical treehouses in Hawaii and China.

Then we go on the road with Lloyd, as he chronicles trips that he made over the last 30 years. He photographed country homes that caught his eye along the Mississippi River, lovely and simple architectural elegance in Nova Scotia, old farm buildings of Utah and Nevada, tropical abodes in Costa Rica, and simple living in Baja California.

Continuing with the tradition that Lloyd established in the original Shelter book, there are a bunch of images of unusual housecars or rolling residences. My original school bus home was featured in the first book. This time there is a donkey train pulling a rolling homestead, complete with goats and chickens. There are several gypsy wagons, both self-propelled and not. There is log home on wheels, as well as various buses and vans. Lots of fun.

A chapter on living lightly features descriptions and diagrams of tipis, yurts, tents, make-shift structures, and traditional native American homes. There is enough information in these pages to be able to construct many of these dwellings.

Another love that Lloyd manifests is for old barns of all types. There are photos and diagrams of many of these fine buildings. In fact old buildings of all sorts attract his eye, and we see them from Oregon to Nepal, and from Hungary back to California, where Lloyd still resides in a funky little place on the coast of Marin County. Thank you Lloyd Kahn for such a wonderful trip!

This is the best book of it's type that I have encountered. There are a lot of people out there building interesting structures with their own hands in their own way. For those who either are doing this or aspire to it, there isn't much out there in the way of books or cheerleading.

'Home Work' focuses largely on interesting homes built by baby-boomers who may or may not call themselves hippies, but are generally coming out of the 'back to the land' movement of the 60's and 70's that is generally associated with that subculture. This may or may not have been intentional on the part of the author. There is also a heavy West-coast bias at work. Every builder profiled seems to have a sauna & a beard and I could swear there's a pot plant in the foreground of one of the photos.

Honestly the stuff that the hippies started building 30 years ago is probably the cream of the 'interesting' owner-built homes in America. They had the will to build on their own, the low budgets that force creativity and building codes in rural areas were not quite so common as they are today. The timing was just right. Lloyd Kahn has found some of the coolest buildings that resulted from that hiccup of pioneering in the modern era, photographed them beautifully and humanized the builders.

Kahn takes time out half way through the book to celebrate simply-built structures and the joy of encountering them by presenting a series of photgraphic essays documenting his travels through regions thick with soulful buildings. Do you find yourself slowing down when you drive past solemn timber-framed barns or ramshackle sheds? Lloyd Kahn understands you. He has thoughtfully provided a number of pages of 'barn porn' for the junkies among us.

'Home Work' is a great source of not only ideas but affirmation that other people are in fact building some wierd stuff in the middle of nowhere and happily living in it. Perhaps it will give you the confidence you need to finally take the plunge.

Well, this book has everything in it a person could want. 'Cept maybe a hobbit dwelling. Of course, there's so much imagination and so many ideas, that it wouldn't take much to come up with a very comfy hobbit hole. Now instead of just retiring, I'm dreaming of coming up with something unique that I can work on after I retire. And somehow I find myself coming back to this book for more and more ideas.... this book's dangerous!!!

The reviews are all true below. The pendulum is finally swinging back for us younger folks? This book is like a revolutionary call for living another way. Free. Where you're remodeling and living for yourself instead of for "resale value." And you've never seen anything like this book because these are like secret houses. These aren't rich people with decorators clamoring for magazine space.

HOME WORK: HANDBUILT SHELTER represents over thirty years of gathering photos and details about builders around the world; so don't expect a hasty compilation of alternate design here. It represents the sequel to Kahn's best-selling SHELTER, published in 1973, and packs in over a thousand photos and over 300 drawings illustrating hand-made buildings ranging from a Japanese stilt house accessible only by cable across a river to an African stone house. The survey of unique hand-built homes around the world is a joy to behind, contrasting a diversity in design and presentation which comes not from the professional architect's casebook but, many times, from the amateur builders themselves. Very highly recommended for any collection strong in builder's books and design idea books - or even international travel and cultures.

Homework: Handbuilt Shelter offers an unparalleled survey of handbuilt homes, with full color photos and engaging text. Don't be fooled by the badly designed cover - the inside is really beautiful. I have given this book as a gift to 3 different people, of varying ages and interests. It is one of the more popular gifts that I've given. I think because the information is so dense, with actual dimensions and how-to advice, and yet it still reads comfortably, almost like a magazine. Plus the reader can skip around to parts that interest them. I wish there were a hardcover version, because my copy is well-worn.

Lloyd Kahn's latest book on the ideas and independent solutions people have come up with for building is fantastic.
There is an element of nostalgia for anyone who grew up reading books from the alternative press. Llyod's publications being some of the best establish his credentials for this latest effort.
It's a small but potent reminder to all the creative builders who might have settled (or compromised) into the pre-fab burbs that there are still people creating unique spaces to live. A subtle reminder disguised as a colorful coffee table tome with a subtle subversive theme. The examples from his photos and short essays of people who with patience, perseverance and lots of creativity build houses only they envisioned.

This book is absolutely stunning. I spent hours poring over the pictures. It's mostly pictures of creative, unique houses people have built, with a few stories about builders' experiences and techniques.
It will put into perspective the amount to which we have limited ourselves when it comes to traditional housing. It shows how a house is not just shelter, but art, expression, and passion as well.
This will inspire you!

I read this book from cover to cover. The photographs and stories were inspiring to me as a beginner to the concept of building one's own home. I cannot wait to start saving a grubstake towards this end. Reading this book has given me faith that I can really do it!

A companion book to this one is Mortgage-Free. It is a great read as well.

This is a wonderful book - beautiful and enormously useful. The photography of these "hand-made" houses is superb and the personal stories of the builders are interesting, funny, and moving. You don't even have to be interested in building or architecture to relish this book.