To get to my friend Louie’s house this time of year, you have to ride across the river on a 500′ cable. Louie was the featured builder in our book Home Work. Click here to see the pages on Louie; (you can click on each of the photos shown to enlarge them).
Louie is shown here getting the bosun’s chair ready for the trip. The platform is 30′ above the ground. The other photo is one he took when I was about halfway across the river. (The large object coming down from top is the cable.) It’s a thrill to go sailing across the turbulent water.
We had a goose for dinner, with Louie’s home-made zinfandel that night. Now I had to get back across the river, dark and foggy night. I put on my headlight, climbed the tower on the house side of the river, locked the chair on the cable and with not a small amount of trepidation, let go, sailing out into the black night. It was fantastic, like I was in good hands. Came into the landing platform at a trot, and walked through the fields to Louie’s shop, where I stay.
On Dec. 12, 2009, Ziggy writes: “After the Natural Building Colloquium in Eagle Point, Oregon, I traveled with Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley to their home in Coquille, OR: Cob Cottage Company. For those unawares, Ianto and Linda are two very influential cob building pioneers in North America, and authors of The Hand-Sculpted House, the number one go-to book for cob construction. They have been a huge inspiration for me during my house design process, and reading their book sealed the deal for building my home out of cob. Ianto and Linda have decades of experience building with mud. It was an honor to be able to meet them and spend several nights at their place. It was a great experience….”
–
David Greenberg is an artist and treehouse designer. This is one of the treehouses he designed in China (it’s in our book HomeWork).
This photo, by Pete Nelson, is on the French website: https://www.lesechos.fr/luxe/actu/300355342-cabanes-la-grande-evasion.htm
There are 1000s of tiny houses like this all over America, built before rampant bureaucracy shut down the possibility of building small, inexpensive, practical homes.
By photographer Taeke Henstra
“Spotted in Nairobi, January 2008 at Lagoon, a bar/nyama choma (roast meat) joint.”
https://www.afrigadget.com/2009/03/25/repurpose-converted-shipping-containers/
“Swedish firm Tham & Videgard Hansson Arkitekter, have cleverly used mirrored panels to create an almost invisible treehouse “hotel.” Although the square footage hasn’t been revealed, the “hotel” unit boasts a kitchen, sleeping area, living area, and for those not afraid of heights, a terrace.”
https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/invisible-treehouse-eco-friendly
Here are more photos (from Architectural Review) of the sculptural bamboo building on an island in the Gulf of Thailand (which was on my blog 3 weeks ago): https://www.arplus.com/9994/ecological-activity-and-education-center-koh-kood-thailand-by-24h-architecture/
My wife Lesley is having an “open studio” of her quilts, jewelry and scarves this weekend. Yesterday a couple came by in a pickup truck, and the man said to me, “I want to thank you for the inspiration.” Turned out he had picked up our book (1973) in the mid-’70s and it was the reason he decided to build his own house. He described how he built it (on poles), on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, and they were still living there. He had this wonderful light in his eyes. These guys are like long-lost brothers. All the people I’m running across these days that were inspired by our books to create something is a bit overwhelming. I know it sounds self-aggrandizing to keep bringing it up, but darnit, it’s happening like every week, and I’m stoked!
