Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter

Building on the enormous success of the original Shelter, Lloyd Kahn continues his odyssey of finding and exploring the most magnificent and unusual hand-built houses in existence. Among the intriguing domiciles described in Home Work are a Japanese-style stilt house accessible only by a cable across a river; a stone house in a South African valley whose roof serves as a baboon trampoline; multi-level treehouses on the South China Sea; and a bottle house in the Nevada desert. Over 1,500 photos illustrate various innovative architectural styles and natural building materials that have gained popularity in the last two decades such as cob, papercrete, bamboo, adobe, strawbale, timber framing, and earthbags.

Library Journal

Produced in eclectic scrapbook style and considered an important resource for the back-to-the-land movement, Kahn's Shelter (1973) inspired many young readers to buy tracts of rural property and construct self-sufficient homesteads. Kahn is promoting Home Work as a sequel for a new generation of environmentally conscious settlers, but it's really an update of the original, carrying on in the same relaxed mode and highlighting self-taught builders and their original creations. In addition, homage is still paid to ingenious homes and farm building from traditional cultures. Compared with Shelter, Home Work has a smaller format, much more color, and web addresses for many of the resources mentioned. It also includes Kahn's observations gathered over the last three decades. While Kahn does not tell how to plan or build a home in detail, he does include a wealth of hard-won tips and ideas-and 1000 photos, including 300 line drawings. Buy for public libraries where demand warrants.-David R. Conn, Surrey P.L., B.C. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.