Stick models of buildings in book Shelter (plus one from Domebook 2) by Leopold Banchini and friends.

A number of these based on drawings by Bob Easton, the last one is of Val Agnoli’s tower on the California coast.

• From @lloyd.kahn’s Instagram

Display of our books and The Whole Earth Catalog. Table designed by Leopold Banchini; note vertical wires attached to on-end board at top, which provide tension support to table.

The exhibit is one of the first things you see upon entering the exhibition.

You’ll have to forgive if I break my habit of one post daily here, there’s just too much to report.

• From @lloyd.kahn’s Instagram

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.

Rolling Homes

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.”

Shelter Books Exhibited at the Biennale Architettura in Venice

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.

Stick models of buildings in Shelter and Domebook 2. A lot of work went into making these!

The exhibit is in the Arsenale di Venezia, a huge complex of shipyards and buildings built in the 1100s and used for building Venice’s ships.

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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Headed up the coast to hang out with my pal Louie in Pt. Arena yesterday. Was gonna leave at 7 or 8 AM, didn’t get extricated from office biz until noon.

But once rolling, I got the familiar burst of energy. Something about moving wakes my brain up from staying home. The different scenery, the people, the excitement from once again being a traveling photographer. It’s like hunting, whether its scanning the changing landscape for barns and the occasional bit of good architecture or walking down a crowded street in NYC.

I swear, the world is a a place of never-ceasing wonder to me. Photographing, talking to people, letting serendipity run the show, my chi kicks into overdrive.

I’m just gonna write a bit here because I can’t seem to download the 180 or so photos I took yesterday. Hey Instagrammers, remember writing?

At some point in my life I’d like to take trips and communicate (blog and Instagram) as I go, like Charles Kuralt used to do. Come along and ride shotgun with me.

Only problem: how to get paid for doing so?

I stopped at Hog Island Oyster farm yesterday, got a dozen, and left a copy of Driftwood Shacks for Terry and the crew. The woman at the counter said “I love your books.”

Also, along the self-aggrandizement lines, a woman came up to me a few weeks ago at Andytown Coffee in SFO, and said “My daughter still has that mini-book you gave her and she still looks at it.” I had given it to her 4-year old daughter Maggie maybe a year ago, and Maggie had looked through all the pages carefully, asking me which tiny house was mine.

The feedback on our books is off the charts. Everyday, no kidding. The people shown in our building books inspire others to build, or create — something. The idea of using hands to provide (at least part of) their own shelter and food.

On the Skateboard Again
I found a perfect place to ride my skateboard yesterday. Breaking my arm a few years ago was a trauma (first broken bone in 84 years). I’ve felt awkward, cautious, but for the first time yesterday, I felt into the flow. I need to find the right downslope, smooth pavement, feathering out at bottom. No more pushing the speed limit, but rather trying to turn gracefully, like longboard surfing. No slash and burn. For that, I’ll take up skating at age 3 (like my skate hero Jeremy) in my next life, rather than at age 65.

My Mercedes 320E
This is an as-yet undiscovered gem of a car. I bought a ’99 320E with 180K a few years ago, for $4k. Might be up to $7k now with new tires, repairs, tuneups, and I can’t believe not only the design and construction, but the luxury. I would never have thought of myself driving a “Cedes, but this fell in my lap and instead of buying a new Crosstrek (was about to do), I’m gonna stick with this as long as it runs. My first non stick shift ever and I love it. Especially going over the mountain. Gets 22-23 mpg. I read about a couple of 320 E’s with a million miles on motors.

ROLLING HOMES
I’m maybe 3/5 through laying out pages. It changes every day. It’s a book creating itself. I’m not gonna take time to go into specifics, but, in spite of the plethora of books on vans and nomadic living out there these days, this one will be unique, I kid you not. Now working on a couple’s 7-month, 20,000 mile trip through the Sahara desert in 1971 in a Citroen 2CV (Doo-sha-vo) van they bought for $1200 in Paris. Two cylinders, 36 horsepower…

Time to go skating. Sun shining, I love this part of the world. The farther north, the less lameness…

I’ll be putting photos up at: instagram.com/lloyd.kahn by tomorrow (Friday, Aug 27).

Fort Ross, Sonoma County, California

My first trip in a year. Boy, is it good to get rolling again. Driving up Hwy. 1 in my 21-year-old Mercedes 320 E to hang out with my 92-year-old pal Louie, who still rides a 500-foot zipline across a river to get to his cabin.

You know I wish I had more time to prepare decent blog posts, but such is the situation with running a publishing business, doing Instagram and blog posts, Gimme Shelter newsletters, and trying to free up precious time to do layout on ROLLING HOMES — that I’m mainly throwing up large photos here. In a way, I’d like to get paid to document a daily journey through what I find to be an absolutely fascinating world, but for now I have to spread self pretty thin.

I’m not sure that people read blogs nowadays. Are they passé? Whatever.

There are a couple of things I find about blogging now, mid-2021:

1. It gives me a chance to write — which Instagram doesn’t. Words, words, words.
2. It gives me a big(ger) screen than a smartphone.

So I’ll keep doing these quick posts when I can.