I actually started building in 1960 (above is my first building in 1961, in Mill Valley, California, a studio with what is now called a “living roof”) and soon thereafter started shooting photos and interviewing builders for our series of books on handmade housing. In those days we didn’t call it “natural building,” but that’s what it was. In our book Shelter in 1973, a section of the book was devoted to these materials: wood, adobe, stone, straw bale, thatch, and bamboo. I guess we were natural before it was called “natural.”

A month or so ago, Cheryl Long, the editor at The Mother Earth News, asked me if I could do a talk on natural building at the TMEN fair in Albany, Oregon (near Corvallis) on the first weekend in June. As I was getting the materials together, the MakerFaire asked if I could do a presentation at their annual event in San Mateo California, which is coming up this weekend.

I have selected photos from our five major building books, and will be doing a presentation at noon this Saturday (May 16, 2015) on the Maker Square stage in the Homegrown Village section of the fair.

Here are links to the fair and to my presentation:

https://makerfaire.com/maker/entry/51460/

https://makerfaire.com/bay-area-2015/schedule/

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Last week, Yuichi Takeuchi, treehouse builder and kindred spirit from Japan, visited us in our studio.

He’s doing wonderful work and says that Shelter has been a big influence on his work.

His website: https://www.treeheads.com

His photos sorted by projects:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/treeheads/sets/

Chris McClellan,AKA Uncle Mud, is a prolific builder, designer, teacher, dad, photographer, and computer wonk who seems to get a superhuman amount of things accomplished every year. Here’s an e-mail from him on April 11, 2015:

Hey Lloyd, On my way to get kids muddy at the Asheville Mother Earth News Fair I stopped by these guys to discuss the rocket heater we’re building as a workshop in their new strawbale octagon in September. I went from Cleveland where we had snow last week to 80 degrees sleeping on the porch of their old cabin. The stream roaring by a few feet away kept me away pleasantly through the night. A couple weeks ago I made it down to Greenville, AL to teach a cob oven building class. My friends James and Gert are living in a military tent in one of the poorest counties in the US surrounded by an amazing array of free and almost free building supplies–cob, pecan slabs, small diameter cedar and pine posts, $1 pallets. This summer they are collecting materials for a building workshop in the fall. Great fun. My daughter Sarah and I hop on a plane the day after she graduates in June to head for the Mother Earth News Fair in Oregon then visit Breitenbush and Ianto and SunRay before we take the train back. Will we see you there? Building another strawclay cottage in Cleveland in July. Great fun.

Chris

This is a recreated traditional Hawaiian village, on the banks of the Wailua River. There are maybe a dozen buildings and walking around (not many turistas) you can get a feeling for what life was like pre-gringo.

Blog Posts I just did 2 posts for our new blog — they’ll be up within a week — https://www.theshelterblog.com/, as I transition to a different blogging mode. Not as much stuff as this (although I can’t resist blabbing now and then). More material on building, the home arts, gardening, farming. Especially building.

I feel like I have a lot to communicate with builders after all these years of non-academic study of carpentry and other methods of construction.

Back in the saddle with this new blog.

Coming off 5 years of building domes, I set about to learn the most practical methods of building homes, small buildings, and barns. It can be so simple.

Sample future posts:

•Drawings of 5 tiny homes (including every stick of wood in framing (from Shelter)

•Barns of my acquaintance

•Timber Framing

•Master Builders of the Middle Ages

•Architecture: architects need to know that the definition of architecture is “…the art and science of building.” Building.

•Dwell magazine: occasional comments on this paragon of soulless living

•Rad Rigs: More tiny homes on wheels

I’m really excited to be shifting to this mode. I have something like 70,000 photos, both film and digital, to draw from.

Today’s New York Times has a terrific science section, including a stunning photo of the moon by the Lunar Orbiter V, and an article about a combo robot/man diving suit that will be used to explore a Roman ship believed to have sunk in the 1st century BC, and which carried “…the Antikythera Mechanism, a mechanical device for predicting celestial movement.”

Serena was just superb on Saturday. Power and grace. Beautiful.

Surfing Without Catching Waves Went out on my 10′ Haut Surftek board the other day, too many surfers for me, just got a couple of krappy rides in the foam. Then a few days later could not get out through 6′ surf with my surf mat BUT as I get older I settle for just being in the ocean AND I’m gonna get waves — going to Kauai in November with surf mat and fins.

Over & Out I’m leaving tomorrow for Pittsburgh, then to Seven Springs, PA to do a presentation Friday,  Sept 12 at the Mother Earth News Fair. Anyone know if Pittsburgh is worth exploring?

Photo: grapes at Louie’s

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