I often see barns or farm buildings that are effortlessly perfectly proportioned. The architecture of practicality, economy, and local conditions. This is on Highway One in Mendocino county near Manchester.
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This is 10′ by 10′. Rafters made of four 1″ by 4″ by ⅜″ redwood bender board, 16′ long, bent, glued and clamped together. Roof sheathing is 1 × 6 redwood fence boards from Home Depot. Siding is ⅜″ rough-sawn exterior DF plywood. Eventually I’ll panel the inside with used fence boards. Flooring is used yellow pine T&G from Heritage Salvage in Petaluma. Windows (used) from Urban Ore in Berkeley.
Billy Cummings has done most of the work here, including cutting and fitting double-wall polycarbonate greenhouse glazing under the curved eaves.
Next step is to build a sliding door for one half of the end wall shown here so a bed can be rolled out onto the deck for nighttime star gazing. Jay Nelson built a sliding door for his shop that gave me the idea.
Note: A curved roof is infinitely more time-consuming (in many ways) as compared with, say, a shed roof or a gable roof. BUT the space underneath is wonderful and something I highly recommend for tiny homes. If you take the time to build a roof like this, it will give you a feeling of spaciousness and avoid the claustrophobia of small spaces. Curved roofs are the secret to the good feeling in Gypsy wagons (vardos).
Photo by Lloyd Kahn
This is a graceful little steel-framed boathouse that Dean built on the beach. Posts are 4″-5″ square steel, 8′ on center. The steel purlins are 2½″ steel tubes. The 1″×6″ sheathing is welded to the steel purlins with nails. Photo by @lloyd.kahn
Building by the amazing SunRay Kelley in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. Photo by Lloyd Kahn, featured in our book Builders of the Pacific Coast.
Lloyd House built this in 1972. His condition for taking the job was that the owners could only visit the job site three times during construction.
Photo by Lloyd Kahn
Photo by our friend, French carpenter yogan, of The Church of Colònia Güell, an unfinished work by Antoni Gaudí. It was built as a place of worship for the people in a manufacturing suburb in Santa Coloma de Cervelló, near Barcelona.
See yogan’s blog for many more photos of Gaudi’s work, as well as of other unique buildings in different parts of the world.
Photo sent by an anonymous person. Located in Northern California.
Photo by Lloyd Kahn
Barn on Hwy 126, Oregon Photo by Lloyd Kahn
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