In our latest book Rolling Homes.
Note: See comments by YogaSlackers!
In our latest book Rolling Homes.
Note: See comments by YogaSlackers!
Hello, Lloyd.
I’ve just finished reading your lovely new book Rolling Homes and I thought I would send you some photos of our little bus from here in Richmond / El Cerrito.
I bought the carcass (see blue bus photo) of this 1972 Mercedes 306d bus from a young fellow who was riding his bicycle across the country. The bus was in a storage yard in Vallejo where it had been sitting for decades. The wheels were frozen in place as was the engine but the $500 price tag was an encouragement.
I was originally building a Moto Guzzi motorcycle to ride when I had the epiphany that building a rolling cabin and clubhouse would be more fun and would invite new friendships. Several years of effort but not too many dollars later this bus was the result. Its name is Hanuman after the monkey god … which is also a play on words because these little diesel busses are re-badged Hanomags.
It has a 4-cylinder OM615 diesel engine that purrs nicely and front-wheel drive. It gets 20 mpg. We have taken it to many festivals such as Earthdance, Raindance, Burning Man, and on kayaking/fishing trips to Mendocino, etc.
The bus turns 50 this year.… I plan to continue to drive it to all of the wonderful places that we enjoy here in California.… I am sixth-generation Californian with many wonderful photo albums full of Santa Cruz area historic photos passed along from my grandmother along with so many written stories and memories of our history here so far.
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by Sam Mondros – October 10, 2022
Original article at ptreyeslight.com/news/rolling-homes-unpacked-in-new-lloyd-kahn-book
One rainy day last fall, two men traveling on electric unicycles from New York’s Hudson Valley found themselves on the streets of Bolinas being photographed by Lloyd Kahn, author of over a dozen books on tiny homes. The unicycles were outfitted with dirt bike tires, tiger-print protective pads and various bags holding the belongings of their riders, Dylan Weidman and Tristan Schipa.
The unicycles became the most minimalist examples of 75 wheeled homes featured in Mr. Kahn’s new book, Rolling Homes: Shelter on Wheels. Mr. Kahn’s latest release is a follow-up to Tiny Homes on the Move, his first book on mobile homes. Some of its subjects are solar-powered, some double as saunas, some have gardens or pizza ovens and bars. One hauls 12 baby bison and others barely work well enough to get a person and their surfboard to the beach, but all are homes of one sort and the book explores them through photographs and stories about their many adventures.
“I think it’s my best book in a long time,” Mr. Kahn said. “It’s timely and speaks to people who are a part of a movement that isn’t specific to any age group.”
Mr. Kahn has spent over five decades publishing a wide spectrum of books on do-it-yourself design and carpentry that have influenced builders across the world. He took to building at age 12, helping with projects at his family’s weekend home in the Central Valley. After graduating from Stanford in 1957, he joined the Air Force and spent two years as the editor for a military newspaper. When he returned to California, he built his first home, in Mill Valley, developing his practical philosophy of building while working as an insurance broker. He soon exchanged his suit and tie for a hammer and measuring tape.
In Big Sur in the ’60s, Mr. Kahn explored a variety of housing design concepts and quickly became an authority on geodesic domes. Ultimately, he would rescind his two books on domes out of a belief that the structures, once representative of a brand of Northern California counterculture, were intrinsically flawed. “I have many reasons for why they don’t work,” Mr. Kahn said. “The whole building is exposed to weather, it’s hard to subdivide inside and they leak. I learned there’s beauty in rectangles, as far as housing goes,” he said.
In 1973, Mr. Kahn released his most popular book to date, Shelter, co-authored by architect Bob Easton. The colossal photo book celebrates varying forms of shelter built by humankind and showcases Mr. Kahn’s D.I.Y. ethic, offering blueprints and instructions “Shelter” sold over 300,000 copies and was re-released in 2013.
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Our booth at the TinyFest Festival at the Alameda Fairgrounds last weekend, where we sold books and had a great time meeting new friends.
At the booth, we introduced our just-published Rolling Homes book and we sold a lot of copies. Everyone seems to love it. For one thing, the timing — with all the new vans, trucks, trailers and other nomadic vehicles on the roads now.
Two of the contributors to the book showed up and parked their rigs next to our booth: Ben Bloom’s homemade redwood camper shell on his Toyota Tacoma truck and Paul Elkins’ bike-pulled solar- and wind-powered trailer. Both of these generated a lot of interest, with a steady stream of inquiring fair goers
On the first day, maybe 20 people came into the booth and thanked us for the books through the years. Really gratifying.
To anyone receiving this for the first time, I send these newsletters out every few months. They’re different from social media — old-school in a way — in that they go to a select audience (over 5,000 people now), rather than blasting out into the internetosphere.
If you’re not signed up on the list to receive it, you can sign up for email delivery of the Gimme Shelter newsletter here.
After a year and a half, dealing with maybe a hundred contributors, thousands (I kid you not!) of emails, many thousands of photos, the book has pieced itself together, as has been the fashion with our building books. The material provided the content, and the book organized itself as it was put together.
I just received (via expensive air mail from China) the first five copies of Rolling Homes: Shelter on Wheels. 7,000 copies of the book are now en route to the U.S.A. and we expect it to be available in mid-July.
Holding it in my hands, I’m seeing it for the first time. And yes, I am prone to over-enthusiasm, and yes, this is my baby — but I think this is our best building book in years. There’s energy, there’s joy, there’s cleverness and craftsmanship and the spirit of adventure. There’s solid information — and fun. The people shine through.
There are time-tested components recommended by these builders, sometimes in great detail. And there’s inspiration — to create, to build, to get out there, to do something different.
But best … check it out in this 50-page flipbook: shelterpub.com/rolling-homes-sample-flipbook
Want the full book in flipbook form for review? Write rollinghomes@shelterpub.com, telling us where your review might appear, and we’ll send a link (and send us your address if you’d like us to mail you a copy of the book once printed).
Can you help us publicize the book? We will send you the flipbook version and if you like it, could you give us a few lines we could use for publicity purposes?
Want an early copy? Pre-order with a 20% discount.
Note: Please don’t order other books along with the pre-order.
Johnny Vang built this unique camper, which is featured in our forthcoming book, Rolling Homes. It’s an ingenious design, where it does not appear that anyone is living within. Johnny just wrote, saying he needs to sell it. It’s a 2004 Chevy Silverado with an LM7 5.3-liter, 8-cylinder Vortec engine with 301,000 miles on it. He says it gets 15mpg at 70 miles per hour. When I asked him what shape the motor was in, he replied: “Motor still runs strong. Just got to add a quart of oil ever 1500 miles or so.”
In my opinion, it’s a rare bargain, at $3900. He can be contacted at johnnyturbogt@gmail.com
Gerry Miltenberger travels throughout Mexico in his pickup truck/camper, doing these wonderful drawings of his discoveries. I’ve encouraged him to do a small book on his travels.
Here he’s in Presa Cajón de Peña, about 30 miles south of Puerto Vallarta, in the state of Jalisco.
To anyone receiving this for the first time, I send these newsletters out every few months. They’re different from social media — old school in a way — in that they go to a select audience (over 5,000 people now), rather than blasting out into the internetosphere.
If you’re not signed up on the list to receive it, you can sign up for email delivery of the Gimme Shelter newsletter here.
This is my first newsletter in 6 months, no less. Boy, how time has flown. So I’m afraid it’s gonna be a long one.
Rick and I have been working on this book for maybe 4 months. Our modus operandi: I write (or edit) text, print out photos, use a color copy machine (a workhorse Brother MFC-371DCW) to resize photos, then paste down text and photos with removable Scotch Tape. These then go to Rick, who uses Photoshop and InDesign to prepare files for printers. As we go along, he makes PDFs so I can print out pages to see how they look. An analog/digital process. We’ve got about 150 (out of 256) pages done.
I never know what a book will be like until we are well underway in production. We start with a theme — here, homes on wheels — and put it together 2 pages at a time, and the book reveals itself as we proceed.
And this one — good golly Miss Molly! — is turning out to be amazing. I’m sure you’re aware of the explosion of nomadic vehicles in recent years. Our book is composed of primarily do-it-yourselfers — the theme running through all our building books — and the designs, ingenuity, and craftsmanship are stunning.
One thing I just realized: there are a lot of surfers in this book — female and male. Below is Yasha Hetzel, who went 120,000 miles in Australia in a Citroën Berlingo van, here surfing at South Point:
BTW, we don’t seem to have any of the so-called “vanlife” rigs here — the young attractive couples with photos of sunsets and the minutiae of their daily lives. It wasn’t a conscious decision; it’s just is turning out that our rigs and people are more real, more hands-on than the “influencers.”
This is the big news around here right now. According to Wikipedia, the Biennale Architettura is “…an International exhibition held every other year in Venice, Italy, in which architecture from nations around the world is presented.”
The two architects responsible for the exhibit, Leopold Banchini and Lukas Feireiss, visited here last year, interviewed me, shot photos, and in conjunction with the exhibit, produced a book titled Shelter Cookbook. They have arranged for my flights to and from Venice, and a place to stay there, and after three flight cancellations and rescheduling and Covid preparations, I’m set to leave here on October 6th. I am excited!
The Shelter part of the exhibit consists of three of our books: Domebook One, Domebook 2, and Shelter, which are on display, as well as stick models of buildings shown in these books.
I’ll be in Venice October 9–11; and on the 13th, I’ll be doing a slide presentation called “60 Years of Natural Building” at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, a school of architecture in Italian-speaking Switzerland. Then to Florence, then (maybe train ride) to Sicily where I’ll spend a week exploring (and swimming). Back home and back to book production end of October.
I’m really excited to be going back to Italy (and seeing Venice and Sicily for the first time). I love the people, the sea, the countryside, the food, the gardens — the Italian way of life — my cup of tea — er, espresso.
I’m going as lightweight as possible this trip, with a Cotopaxi Allpa 35 travel pack with compression bags (fits easily into overhead bin) and my regular daily Dakine backpack for MacBook Air, glasses, pens, etc. Trying something new this trip: the only camera — my iPhone 11 Pro Max. Not taking my Olympus OM-D EM-1 camera and lenses saves a lot of weight, and the iPhone is pretty darn capable.
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I would use either peat moss, sawdust, or rice hulls to cover each deposit. Ward Hensill makes an upgraded model of this and uses a plunger to compress everything.
No urine. Have 2 of these so when close to full, you let one sit while you fill the other. Then back into soil. Circle (cycle) completed.