Photo by Lloyd Kahn
Lots of nice details here: gable at left, three-sided pop-out on lower right, nicely fitted roofs over windows in two gables. Non-sagging eave lines indicate sound foundation. Why don’t architects come up with such simple, practical, time-tested designs these days? This place looks lived-in.
We recently had Dr. Chris Ryan over to record an episode of Chris’ podcast Tangentially Speaking. Click the iTunes link below to hear Lloyd discuss his life, what got him into building, publishing books, and what’s up next for Shelter Publications.
Chris Ryan is an author, podcaster, world traveler, and an all-around amazing guy. Check out his bestselling book Sex at Dawn; look for his next book coming out next year called Civilized to Death.
Interior of 30′ diameter geodesic dome built by @lloyd.kahn in 1972 in Northern California. Struts are 2 × 3 Douglas Fir, paneling is 1 × 6 Douglas Fir recycled subflooring from Treasure Island Navy barracks.
On Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. Sides are hand-split cedar shakes. Bruno is one of the 3 featured builders in Builders of the Pacific Coast.
When constructing a tiny house on wheels, we are presented with a unique opportunity to add materials and fittings which we may not be able to afford were we constructing a larger home. Reducing the size of a home also means reducing the amount of materials which are required to build it and therefore gives us an opportunity to use higher quality, longer-lasting materials. Putting hardwood floors down in a 5-bedroom family home would be an extreme cost, but when you’re only placing them in a tiny house on wheels, then all of a sudden that becomes achievable. When Alex and Emmie, a young couple from Ojai, California decided to build their tiny house, they chose to truly craft it as an heirloom, utilising high-quality, sustainably sourced materials to build their home in a way that it would stand the test of time, and be a treasure which they could pass down to future generations.
…I have worked as a forester since the mid-1970s and have lived in places that had specialized structures with limited functions, a cookhouse for cooking and eating, a bathhouse for showers and clothes washing, and a smaller structure (cabin or tent frame) to sleep in. Not much of a stretch to think I could do that again. I always wanted a large outside space which would stay dry. So I ended up with a 16´ × 16´ covered deck in front of the cabin. This had an added advantage because it gave me a large, dry, flat building area. Since it does rain a bit around here, that was a huge plus.
The cabin’s concept was to build modular log walls, and then assemble them in a post-and-beam framework. The log walls use ¾˝ thick, 3˝ wide plywood splines to attach them to the posts. The modules are built on a jig, and are then either stored somewhere until it is time to build or are then rebuilt on the foundation.
I’m just a retro-grouch at heart. Old school, wood and steel, no electricity, and a bit of skill beats power tools any day. I like my electric hand planers for smoothing wall timbers, love my chainsaw for cutting the big stuff — but for a simple bevel on a board (or 70 boards), I like the sound of a quiet hand plane that is older than my grandkids, older than my kids, older than me, maybe older than my father, and just like the ones my grandfather used to use.
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Photo by Jay Shafer
My home, which I built in 2003–04, is a hybrid design. The north, east, and west wall are straw bale, while the south wall is adobe and glass. The upper story is framed with 2˝ × 8˝ rough-sawn local Ponderosa Pine, furred out to about 9½˝ to accommodate a heavy coat of cellulose insulation, which also fills the roof cavity. Downstairs, there are earthen plasters inside and outside, while upstairs is sheathed in local, rough-sawn pine board and batten.
Drywall walls upstairs are finished in earthen plasters, which ties the two levels together. A central woodstove heats the home, which is off the grid. I tried to use materials mostly from my county in southwest Colorado. Ceilings are tongue-and-groove aspen sawn in a mill six miles away. The frame is local Ponderosa pine, including a third of them milled from my property. I did my own bathroom and kitchen cabinetry. Downstairs floors are earthen (two thirds) and tile (one third). There are lots of porches for protection of my earthen walls during a Colorado winter. One unique feature is a 10-inch lizard (painted blue) that runs up the staircase on an interior adobe wall. I named her Noelle when I finished shaping her one Christmas afternoon. I share the house with my wife Shaine, kids Rosie and Fielder, and dog Ella…
“The Flying Tortoise is a 1977 KD Bedford bus built in New Zealand by Hawke Coach Builders. Originally it was used in forestry areas to carry work gangs to remote bush sites, built high off the ground and with a short wheelbase for tight turning, there’s hardly a hill it can’t climb, and with its off-road tires, it’s almost a ‘Go Anywhere Vehicle.’”
I’ve been going through old photos lately. I shot photos of this beautiful barn in 2014. I posted it back then, but I think it’s worth looking at it again, in more detail. Here’s what I wrote:
There are buildings that have — for lack of a better word — a sweetness to them. Like this barn, like a small abandoned cottage in an English field I once found, slowly disintegrating back into the soil from which all its materials came. Inside, I could feel the lives that had been lived there. Or the buildings of master carpenter Lloyd House. It happens most frequently in barns, where practicality and experience create form with function. Architecture without architects.
The unique feature here is that the roof’s curve is achieved by building the rafters out of 1″ material. 1 × 12s laminated together (I believe 4 of them) to achieve the simplest of laminated trusses. The barn is 24′ wide, 32′ long, 26′ to the ridge. Thanks to Mackenzie Strawn for measuring it; he also wrote: “I have a carpentry manual from the 1930’s with a short section on the Gothic arch barns, they suggest making the roof radius ¾ of the width.”
The shell is built over an 8-foot dingy and can be taken on and off. The boat contains a bed, storage, and a stove.
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