I am Bastien Forestier. I live in Boussy Saint Antoine near Paris. One year ago, in the winter, I was driving across Normandy to go surfing. On my way I stumbled upon la Chappelle D’Allouville, a mystical wooden treehouse made by a monk in 1609. So I decided to build a shelter using this technique.
I began doing wood shingles and beams. First with axes, then I bought a shaking axe.
I used the trees around me. I know them all since my childhood. Now after a year i have a roof and walls. I am very sure to make more houses like this in the future, inspired by Tingely’s cyclops maybe.
I like that the people in the neighborhood call it La Chapelle (the chapel).
Note: These are actually shakes, rather than shingles. –LK
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
I have made shakes with a froe, but not many.
How are these shakes fastened to the walls?
Yes, I wondered about that. The network he is attaching to looks flimsy. Also, these are pretty rough looking shakes. Real shakes are split against the grain, and from old growth (dense rings) wood. Those split with the grain are called “bastard shakes,” and manufactures of shakes are only allowed to have 10% of shakes in a bundle be bastard shakes.
Shakes are split, shingles are sawn.
I have used shakes in building three homes. Have found short pieces of old growth in woods, left by loggers. Also got some in the ’70s from driftwood logs on beach.
Sorry for the late answer… I like the name of “bastard shakes”. The shakes are just nailed to gather with thin nails. First, I wanted to fix the shakes on a bamboo web but I did not work. As the shakes are thick nailed with a compressor gun, it is super solid. I want to explore it and make different shapes of building, curves without any structural need.
The wood is ash.