Built By Hand

Authors: Eiko Komatsu, Athena Steen, Bill Steen
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Gibbs Smith, Publisher; 1 edition (September 26, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 158685237X
ISBN-13: 978-1586852375

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A modern, full-color version of the Bernard Rudofsky classic ‘Architecture without Architects’, this book takes readers on a magnificent journey to distant corners of the earth in search of the world’s most amazing vernacular architecture. It is the most comprehensive and groundbreaking documentation of hand-made architecture ever published. (Prarie Avenue Bookshop Holiday Gift Guide )

From elaborate bamboo structures in Sumba, Indonesia, to houses carved out of volcanic rock in Cappadocia, Turkey, and homes made from earth-block in Chipaya, Bolivia, Japanese photographer Yoshio Komatsu (assisted by spouse Eiko) has traveled the world photographing vernacular structures. The Steens (The Straw Bale House) provide captions and notes on construction techniques in stone, reeds and many other materials. With more than 700 full-color photos in an 8″X9″ format, the book takes readers to Ethiopia, Iran, Japan, Spain, Venezuela and many other places. (Publishers Weekly )

“more than just a collection of amazing photos” (The Last Straw Journal )

Product Description

Shelter the Human Family is the most extensive documentation ever published of traditional (“vernacular”) buildings throughout the world. With examples from nearly every continent, the book documents the diverse methods people have used to create shelter from locally available natural materials, and shows the impressively handmade finished products through this truly stunning compilation of photographs. Unlike modern buildings that rely on industrially produced materials and highly specialized electric tools and techniques, the shelters featured here represent a rapidly disappearing genre of handcrafted and beautifully composed structures. They are the work of simple and real people who, as builders and homesteaders, have integrated artistic beauty and practical form into their shelter needs. Shelter the Human Family offers insights into the world of vernacular building, along with potential solutions to many of the problems that plague modern architecture. It is a must-have collection that preserves and documents the rich cultural past of each structure and its community, and offers inspiration for those looking to build in a way that is motivated by something larger than speed, efficiency, and economic profit. Bill and Athena Steen are the authors of The Straw Bale House and The Beauty of Straw Bale. They are active in community building programs that teach low-income families how to build their own shelters, and known for their efforts to incorporate artistic techniques based on local and natural materials into the world of modern construction. They live in Elgin, Arizona. Yoshio Komatsu has been photographing buildings and people around the world for 25 years. His photographs were collected in the Japanese book Living on Earth, and his work is regularly published in books, magazines, and calendars throughout Japan. This is his first book in English. He and his wife, Eiko, live in Tokyo.

A Shelter Sketchbook: Timeless Building Solutions

Author(s): John S. Taylor

Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co

ISBN: 1890132020

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A Shelter Sketchbook: Timeless Building Solutions

Reprint Edition
Paperback, 160 pages
Publication date: September 1997

In a new take on sustainable living and building, John Taylor presents a stunning array of traditional building techniques and housing solutions from around the world and from history. Most are motivated by available materials, economic necessity, and local climate and terrain. In this time of growing interest in earth-friendly building techniques, Taylor shows us that we need to relearn many practical aspects of constructing shelter and must blend the technologies of the present with the traditions of the past, with those of other cultures, and even with those of our own grandparents. Taylor, an architectural designer, has filled this delightful book with remarkable drawings and sketches of building techniques gleaned from his travels; it is a feast for the eyes as well as the brain.

Authentic Small Houses of the Twenties: Illustrations and Floor Plans of 254 Characteristic Homes

Author(s): Robert T. Jones

Publisher: Dover Publications

ISBN: 0486254062

ISBN-13: 978-0486254067

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As all of history is cyclical, so is home architecture in America. Authentic Small Houses of the Twenties shows wonderful possibilities for houses that capture the “Not so Big House” ideal, a movement gaining momentum in this day of the McMansion. The product of a joint venture by the U. S. Dept. of Commerce and the American Institute of Architects after WWI, these house plans show marvelous use of interior space, detailing and economy. Although the house plans with sketches or photos of each shown are not available, as far as I know, in blueprint form for purchase, they furnish tremendous grist for the creative future home owner. A treasure!

The Green Kitchen Handbook: Practical Advice, References, & Sources for Transforming the Center of Your Home into a Healthy, Livable Place

Author(s): Annie Berthold-Bond, Mothers for a Livable Planet, Meryl Streep

Publisher: HarperCollins (paper)

ISBN: 0060951869

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The Green Kitchen Handbook: Practical Advice, References, and Sources for Transforming the Center of Your Home into a Healthy, Livable Place

Paperback, 304 pages
Publication date: March 1997

From Booklist , 03/15/97:
Berthold-Bond’s practical guide answers dozens of questions environmentally conscientious and curious cooks have wondered about for years, such as the geographic origin of common healthful foods, their processing or production, and what makes them healthful or not. High points are the detailed discussion of oils and their uses, fatty acid profiles, and smoke points; the microbiology and biochemistry of food preservation in lay language, along with step-by-step procedures for freezing, drying, canning, and preparing a root cellar; a survey of organic agriculture and its standards; and suggestions on how to reduce food packaging and its attendant toxins and nonbiodegradable waste. The last section covers nonfood issues, including household hazardous waste, alternative and safe cleaning supplies and pest control, water purity and conservation, energy-saving appliances, and equipment choices. Well formatted for easy reference, this handbook offers numerous charts of equivalencies, substitutions, and cooking times and concludes with a resource list and an index. Copyright© 1997, American Library Association. All rights reserved

Synopsis:
Featuring everything from lessons on reading labels on packaged foods to buying organic, from canning and community gardening to creating a root cellar, this unique handbook offers suggestions for economical and environmentally conscious alternatives which make keeping a green kitchen a viable, practical option.

Card catalog description
Maintaining an ecologically sound kitchen makes cooking and eating more enjoyable and contributes to the well-being of the environment and your health and family. The Green Kitchen Handbook offers a wealth of practical advice, references, and sources for turning your kitchen into a healthful, livable space. It contains simple tips for immediate use: how to buy organic foods as inexpensively and conveniently as supermarket foods, how to clean and control pests with nontoxic materials, what to look for on food labels, and how to reduce packaging. It also offers advice for more ambitious solutions, including information on canning, creating a root cellar, foraging, and joining community environmental projects. In addition, there are valuable insights on how to buy seasonal, fresh, local foods; how to avoid processed foods and refined sugars; how to recognize the hidden costs in commercial packaging; the best way to prepare and store foods; and how to embrace the new green diet without wasting time and money.

From the Publisher:
The Green Kitchen Handbook contains basic tips on and simple solutions to: what to look for on packaged food labels, how to recognize which food additives to avoid, and how to buy organic foods as inexpensively and conveniently as supermarket foods. And it offers advice for more ambitious projects including information on canning, creating root cellars, buying kitchen appliances, and joining community gardens. The Green Kitchen Handbook also includes valuable insights on how to buy local foods in season; how to avoid excess fat, sugars, and salt; where to locate the best food sources; preparing and storing foods; and integrating the principles of keeping a green kitchen with your daily routine. This unique handbook offers economical and environmentally conscious alternatives that make keeping a green kitchen simple, sensible, and delicious.

Table of Contents
Foreword By Meryl Streep
Preface By Wendy Gordon
1. Introduction
2. The New Green Diet
Step 1. Eating Organically Produced Food
Step 2 and 3. Eating Local, Seasonal Food
Step 4. Eating a Variety of Foods
Step 5. Eating Low on the Food Chain
Step 6. Eating Whole Foods with Adequate Fiber
Step 7. Avoiding Processed Food
Step 8. Reducing Packaging for Public Health and the Environment
3. The New Foragers: New Ways to Shop and Acquire Whole Food
Conventional Stores
Alternative Ways of Finding Whole Foods
Food Packaging
4. The Green Pantry
Grains and Flours
Dried Beans and Peas
Nuts and Seeds
Herbs and Spices
Teas
Whole Food Sweeteners
Healthful Oils
5. Preserving the Foods of the Harvest
The Secrets of Food Preservation
Freezing Food
Drying Food
Root Cellars
Canning Food
6. The Ecological Kitchen
Under the Kitchen Sink: Household Hazardous Waste
Cleaning
Pest Control
Water
Energy Use in the Kitchen
Equipping the Green Kitchen
Dealing with Garbage
Appendix. Nutritional Data
Resources
Index

Tiny Tiny Houses

Author(s): Lester Walker

Publisher: Overlook Press

ISBN: 0879512717

ISBN-13: 978-0879512712

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Hardcover
July 1987

Tiny Houses contains the plans for forty-four houses so small that anyone can afford to have one—and so thoughtfully designed that anyone can build one—each offering the dream of solitude, a place to escape for a weekend of romance, meditation, or whimsy. Award-winning architect Lester Walker shows how, with a little energy and imagination, everyone’s dream of owning a home, or having a second home in the country, is within reach.

About the Author

Lester Walker is an award-winning architect and a partner in the architectural firm StudioWorks in Woodstock, New York.

Customer Comments

from New York State (US) , September 15, 1998
Highly recommended if you’re building a small, unique home
My father lent me this book after I bought some property (19 acres) and told him I was planning on building a small dwelling there–not necessarily with heat and running water. (But with ISDN or satellite connectivity, of course. 😉 The collection of house profiles is inspiring! From a thatch dwelling, to a two-story built entirely by the woman living there. Famous tiny houses include Thomas Jefferson’s honeymoon cottage (which I will probably be building), Thoreau’s cabin, George Bernard Shaw’s rotating writing hut. Each house profile includes photos, sketches and floor plans (including tiny furniture).

I’m coming here to get a copy for the friend/architect who I’m going to have draw up the plans!

Ecological Design

Author(s): Sim Van Der Ryn, Stuart Cowan

Publisher: Island Press

ISBN: 1559633883

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Hardcover, 200 pages

Synopsis:
Ecological Design presents a vision of how the living world and the human world can be rejoined by taking ecology as the basis for design–adapting and integrating human design with natural processes. The authors weave together case studies, personal anecdotes, images and theory to provide a thorough treatment of the concept of ecological design.

Card catalog description
Ecological design, the marriage of nature and technology, can be applied at all levels of scale to create revolutionary forms of buildings, landscapes, cities, and technologies. Some examples include sewage treatment plants that use constructed marshes to purify water; agricultural systems that mimic and merge with their surrounding landscapes; industrial ecosystems in which waste from one productive process becomes fuel for the next. The authors weave together case studies, personal anecdotes, dialogues, images, and theory to provide a thorough treatment of the concept of ecological design. In the process, they present and explain a series of design principles that can help build a sustainable world with increased efficiency, fewer toxics, less pollution, and healthier natural systems. –This text refers to the paperback edition of this title.

Table of Contents
Pt. 1. Bringing Design to Life

Sustainability and Design
An Introduction to Ecological Design
Nature’s Geometry

Pt. 2. The Ecological Design Process

Introduction: The Compost Privy Story
First Principle: Solutions Grow from Place
Second Principle: Ecological Accounting Informs Design
Third Principle: Design with Nature
Fourth Principle: Everyone Is a Designer
Fifth Principle: Make Nature Visible

Resource Guide for Ecological Design
Bibliography
Index

Drawn from African Dwellings

Author(s): Jean-Paul Bourdier, T. Minh-Ha Trinh, Trinh T. Minh-Ha

Publisher: Indiana Univ Press

ISBN: 0253330432

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“… an elegant and lyrical work…. It opens up our understanding of space and built environments in new and exciting ways.” — Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review

“The book offers marvellous drawings of complex patterns of structure, design and object, coupled with connections to the daily lives of the inhabitants. In itself, this book is an essential addition to what Indiana University Press has aptly described as ‘the understanding of vernacular architecture’.” — West Africa

“… a magnificent achievement; [the authors] set an objective and a standard in vernacular architecture research which is without parallel. The text is clear and careful, sensitive to the cultures yet quietly rigorous. The drawings are outstanding and have been exceptionally well reproduced in a book whose quality of production matches that of the content.” — Paul Oliver

“… a lasting monument to African architectures…. a fine creation, a collage of marvelous graphic images, earnest research, good writing, careful thinking.” — Henry Glassie

“Scholars are realizing how important it is to provide a rich, thick cultural and social setting when they attempt to explore art…. This book does that for architecture.” — Patrick R. McNaughton

“… will be regarded as an important contribution to the understanding of vernacular architecture.” — Berkeley Tri-City Post

“… a stunning piece of work… An important contribution to architecture…” — FIST, Afrocentric On-line Magazine

“The photographs and drawings are fascinating. ” — The New Brunswick Reader

Architect Jean-Paul Bourdier and cultural critic and filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha take us into the traditionally built dwellings of African society in this richly illustrated book. Through this “life-in-architecture” we see material evidence of a culture, its socio-economic and cosmological organization, its way of living, and its world view.

About the Author

JEAN-PAUL BOURDIER, Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, is the editor and co-founder of Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review. TRINH T. MINH-HA, Professor in the Departments of Women’s Studies and Film Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of a number of books, including Woman, Native, Other. Her films are Reassemblage, Naked Spaces — Living Is Round, Surname Viet Given Name Nam, Shoot for the Contents, and A Tale of Love.

Making the Most of Small Spaces

Author(s): Anoop Parikh

Publisher: Rizzoli Intl Pubns

ISBN: 0847818012

ISBN-13: 978-0847818013

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Available in Hardcover and paperback
Publication date: June 1994

Synopsis:
Designed for city dwellers and young people for whom small living spaces are the only practical answer to high real estate and rental costs, this book is filled with timely, state-of-the-art ideas for saving space as well as making the most of available apace. 90 color illustrations.

Here is much-needed information on how to use space efficiently in studio apartments and in every room of the full-size home. State-of-the-art kitchen equipmaent and storage solutions, ingenious space-saving ideas, and tips on using color, pattern, texture, and concealed and mirrored elements help make small spaces biggeron a sensible budget.

Customer Comments

from Columbus,Ohio , 11/25/97, rating=10:
Great single source book for apartment/loft living The book contains alot of doable ideas for making a small apartment or studio into real living. It gives a simple breakdown of the basic elements to utilizing whatever size space you have. There are also other books in the Making the Most of… series. They all seem well thought out.

Daylighting for Sustainable Design

Author(s): Mary Guzowski

Hardcover: 448 pages

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional; 1 edition (October 11, 1999)

ISBN-10: 0070254397

ISBN-13: 978-0070254398

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Daylighting is a key element of sustainable design. First, it reduces the need for artificial lighting — often the largest energy use in commercial buildings. Second, daylighting is primarily design-dependent with little additional material expense. Third, daylighting offers a wide range of benefits including energy savings, improved health, better aesthetics as well as higher productivity and sales. These benefits make daylighting one of the most popular features in modern buildings.

Daylighting for Sustainable Design offers practical strategies and techniques for a wide range of building types. Throughout, the author uses illustrations and photos (many in color) to demonstrate key points. The book is filled with examples, including office buildings, hospitals, libraries, private homes and more.

Daylighting for Sustainable Design goes far beyond the architecture and technology of daylighting. Part I addresses environmental considerations that affect the design, including the apparent motion of the sun, sky conditions and other characteristics of the local climate. Guzowski also identifies ways that daylighting can contribute heat, electricity, plant growth, waste processing and even food production. Part III delves into human considerations such as visual comfort, light therapy, contact between humans, human interaction with the building and the connection to the outside environment. Sandwiched in the middle, Part II describes architectural issues such as building forms and massing, windows and appropriate technology.

449 pages, 2000

“Her vision is worldwide and her palette is rich: Light. Architecture. Color. Health. Design. Plants. Energy. Time. Reflection. Shading. Comfort. Form. Economy. Weather. Nature. Heat. Seasons…. Mary Guzowski is showing us the way back to an appropriate, balanced and beautiful world. She brings light into our lives.

— From the foreword by Malcolm Wells, author of Gentle Architecture

“This specific tie of daylighting to larger questions of sustainable design is unique… useful and revealing.”

— John Reynolds, University of Oregon, coauthor of Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings

The Cottage Book

Author(s): Richard Sexton

Publisher: Chronicle Books

ISBN: 0877015139

ISBN-13: 978-0877015130

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Richard Sexton, who himself lives in a small hillside cottage overlooking the city by the bay, has translated his passion for these quaint, rustic, and informal dwellings into a volume of captivating color images. You can live the cottage life vicariously through Sexton; his photographs have an almost three-dimensional feel that gives you the sense of being there. Picturing yourself having lunch on the deck of a houseboat shown in these pages is a breeze, for he is a master of lighting and mood.

Customer Comments

A reader from Trenton, New Jersey , 04/13/98, rating=9:
A mini-vacation between two hard covers. An informative, enjoyable, aesthetically pleasing book about the cottages and cottage styles of San Francisco. The first chapter tells the story of how San Francisco cottages developed, and then specific cottages are showcased. Many views are of the exteriors, but some include interior photos with the homeowners’ stories and quotes. Many individual cottages and styles are shown, providing variety and a feast for the eye. This book is a great get-away when you can’t actually get away, and leads to very pleasant daydreaming. –This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title.

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Product Description

About the Author

About the Author

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