Shot on a trip in 2017, hanging out with Godfrey Stephens and Bruno Atkey…
I like a lot of things about this design, like the way the shingles flair out over the lower windows.
Too bad more people having homes built don’t just go with the thousands of well-worked-out designs like this, rather than hiring an architect, who will usually be trying to make a “statement.”
There are lots of of home-sweet-homes designs out there, worked out over centuries.
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 suspect the reason why many dont just go with having a home built as you say “of well-worked-out designs”, is the folks they need to hire
to do the “building” want blueprints etc…hence an architect/architect technician, etc..
folks like you/many of your friends whom you have featured, no doubt have the skills to do it themself/instruct some one in the particulars.
Many do not.
Architects that want to make a statement, tell me about it. We once visited an old farm which had been renovated. The lady who lived there said ‘I had a lot of fights with my architect and I won!’ She was proud of that, and rightly so, she kept it simple and convenient, fitting to a farm building, rather than making her farm an artwork she did not want to live in. Here in Belgium, I see a lot of 70 year old houses in our area being bought by young people, and they remove windows and replace it by a brick wall. The old ‘traditional’ style is changed by a modern architect. Very often they want no window to the street. No contact with the outside world. It looks rather odd to me though. And this is from before Corona happened. The window openings they still keep, are replaced by windows that cannot be opened. Then they install airco. There is nothing as nice as a window where you can to see what’s happening, also in the front of the house. A squirrel in the garden, a friend arriving on the driveway… And a window to open for me is essential. So no, I’m not a big fan of architectst that want to make statements that move away from organic, proven design.