Lloyd Kahn Talks Shelter in Kirkcaldy

Posted on Posted in Architecture, Cabins, Design, eco-friendly, Small House, sustainability, wood

I have been looking forward to this for a while and it was not a disappointment! Lloyd Kahn is in the back of many self-builders’ cerebral toolboxes for his seminal works as Editor in Chief of Shelter Publications, California. His 1973 book ‘Shelter‘ is an incredibly detailed catalogue of building techniques through the ages, illustrated with the personal stories and evocative photos of small houses and cabins collected on his travels throughout the USA and Canada as well as Ireland and the UK. It sits alongside my copy of Christopher Alexander’s ‘Pattern Language’ at the core of my own inspirational library, so it was a real thrill to hear Himself speak of his life publishing, building, surfing and skateboarding. Yes skateboarding! - in fact he only stopped skateboarding this year when he broke his arm…and let me just point out he is 81 - what a cool dude!!!

We started the evening with at a reception at the Kirkcaldy Galleries to see the exhibition ‘Shelters’ curated by Bobby Niven from the Bothy Project and instigated by Fife Contemporary Art & Craft. This fascinating touring exhibition features what turns out to be small selection of the vast body of work collected by Lloyd over the decades.

We then moved on to the Adam Smith Theatre for the main event of the night - Lloyd’s talk. It started with a thought-provoking introduction from Bernard Planterose about Lloyd, Self-Building, small Houses and the recent excellent progress of Reforesting Scotland’s Thousand Huts campaign. Bobby Niven then spoke in glowing terms about Lloyds impact on his own work before introducing Lloyd who spoke for over an hour with a superb selection of slides, anecdotes and pithy truisms.

It’s no wonder Lloyd is a legend…from his involvement in the Whole Earth Catalog - the American counter-culture’s magazine and eco-product catalogue published by Stewart Brand, Lloyd started building timber frame structures then turned to geodesic domes when these were the coolest thing in California and beyond! He subsequently wrote 2 bestselling books about domes but then when he realised that they really didn’t work, characteristically withdrew them from publication and went back to timber framing! As he said “admitting I was wrong was a major step forward in my life”.

We finished up with an enthusiastic Q and A and then after hearty applause wandered away into the gloaming of Kirkcaldy War Memorial Gardens with twinkling fairy lights in the blossom heavy cherry trees and more than just a sense that we had witnessed something truly special - an ongoing celebration of Lloyd Kahn’s fifty years being inspired by building with wood and natural materials and the complex art of creating simple shelter whilst inspiring generations of self builders to be creative themselves.

Lloyd Kahn talk
Lloyd Kahn talk

Scottish Parliament Thousand Huts Meeting

Posted on Posted in Architecture, Cabins, Design, eco-friendly, Huts, sustainability, Timber Frame, Tiny House, wood
A seminal moment in the Thousand Huts Campaign at the Scottish Parliament.
A seminal moment in the Thousand Huts Campaign at the Scottish Parliament.

Last night I attended the launch of the new huts planning guide at the Scottish Parliament with 80 planning professionals, architects and hut builders at an event hosted by Angus Macdonald MSP. Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Richard Lochhead has welcomed the guide, saying:

“Huts and hutting are a great way for people to enjoy Scotland’s outstanding natural environment, with all the benefits to health and wellbeing this can bring. I very much welcome the publication of this guidance, which I hope will provide an important opportunity for many more people in Scotland to enjoy the recreational benefits associated with huts and hutting.”

The Thousand Huts campaign team and Planning Advisory Group have spent 2 years working with planning and building professionals to produce this guide to help planners, architects and hut builders alike achieve good practice in new hut developments. This work was supported by The Planning Exchange Foundation, and has been reviewed by planning, legal and tenancy professionals in the public and private sectors and at a local and national level. It is designed to help support the rolling out of Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) on huts.

It was a very inspiring evening which is set to change the future of planning laws for small buildings in Scotland.

The NestHouse from Tiny House Scotland
The NestHouse from Tiny House Scotland

#hutting #thousandhuts

 

A sign of things to come….

Posted on Posted in Barns, Houses, Nesthouse, Small House, wood

Finally, the NestHouse is coming out of its weird UFO-resembling phase (comments such as “when is it getting the rockets fitted Grommet?”!!); or as I prefer to think of it, its chrysalis phase! Its been looking diaphanous and semi transparent for too long now while I developed the timber cladding methods.

So here is a sneak preview of where this project is headed in terms of final look and character with its timber cladding finished in a beautiful microporous natural oil based stain. My addiction to Swedish Barns is showing. Bra, jag älskar det!

Henry David Thoreau

Posted on Posted in Architecture, Cabins, sustainability, wood

A clue to the path Tiny House Scotland is taking….

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

1854 - Henry David Thoreau outlines his project: a two-year, two-month, and two-day stay at a cozy, “tightly shingled and plastered”, English-style 10′ × 15′ cottage in the woods near Walden Pond.

The frontispiece from Walden, courtesy Wikipedia.

The plan according to …. sustainability and subsisting!

Posted on Posted in Architecture, sustainability, wood

Its a clear matter of principle for me that Tiny House Scotland is a micro business - I have no intentions of it becoming anything other than just myself and perhaps a son or two if they want to get involved!

I have already done the ambitious business scenario prior to the Banking Crash of 2009 with a factory, three shops and twenty employees…

or as per the cartoon Pinky and the Brain:

“what are we going to do today Pinky?” - “Same thing we do every day Master, plan to take over the World!!!”

Needless to say we had to ‘recut our cloth’ and change direction, but I have learnt a lot about myself and the world in the process. Since 2010 I have evolved a new philosophy which started when we moved to our smallholding and founded Shangri La Farm. Here we try to live frugally and sustainably and my main aim is to continue being creative and subsist simply.

I am not therefore trying to make a massive profit or capture the Tiny House market from every angle - just loving working with wooden buildings which I am passionate about. As with the whole Tiny House Concept - Less is MORE and brings greater happiness!!

Micro businesses ARE the way ahead for many people these days - a lot of the reason the unemployment figures have improved is because so many have had to fall back on their own entrepreneurial skills to put food on the table by ‘dodging’ around running a portfolio of tiny enterprises. In addition they may have found that they have also ‘recut their cloth’ and have phased out many of the previously so-called essentials of life and are happier, healthier and with less baggage

Now, I’ve just got to go and bake some bread…!

Sustainable fuel.

Posted on Posted in Architecture, eco-friendly, sustainability, wood
JMA_1832

 

Before the sap rises too much it’s time for me to take one of our big poplars (18m 60′) down for next winter’s firewood. This coppicing means that the stool does regenerate and produce plenty of new poles. Also we do have over 200 of them - so at the current rate of one a year…well you get the picture!

Now I know poplar is not the best wood to burn…according to folklore it will rot before it dries and even if it is dry, it burns too quickly! However, this has not been entirely my experience and but we do have a great drying shed and a very efficient Danish stove with precise control. As this is the fifth year I’ve done this at Shangri La…then I am allowed to say, well “it just works!”

In you case you are interested (!) in the felling method - that was a 70 degree face cut followed by a central plunge cut, wedged, then back cut!

Barn Finials

Posted on Posted in Architecture, Barns, wood

690mm tall, these finials were inspired by my love of victorian railway architecture and made for our barn. I hadn’t used the lathe for a long time so it was quite a challenge to end up with two identical forms.

They were turned from lime wood, primed, painted with Jonathan Avery Sabbathday Blue and stuck on with silicon - no mechanical fixings! Why do it? Well they emphasise the structure almost like punctuation!

Barn Finials by Jonathan Avery
Barn Finials by Jonathan Avery