Shelter

What Hacker News says

1. PaulDavisThe1stApr 2022
   Needed to make another comment. When I was growing up I became fascinated/obsessed with the counter-culture in the US, especially the architectural side of it. I still own copies of both of the two "Domebooks", along with Lloyd Kahn's "Shelter", Ken Kern's "The Owner Builder and the Code: the politics of building your own home" and other classics of that era.

   But among my favorite books from that time is "Handmade Houses: a guide to the woodbutcher's art". You can find many images from the book here:

   https://www.google.com/search?q=handmade+houses+a+guide+to+t...

   The architecture and design is much, much more aligned to the second two examples from Simon's article: hand-made, unique, touch friendly. One might even subsume all these under the term "funky" (though this word has more than one meaning). When I was 18, these were the sorts of houses I thought I would live in as an adult.

   40 years later, the idea of living in any of theses houses fills me with a certain kind of dread, because I now understand how much work it would be to keep them clean and to maintain them. I feel conflicted about this: the aesthetics are far more appealing to than any contemporary "standard" buildings. Nevertheless I do feel very aware that I would likely develop a daily growing resentment towards the way every uneven, non-smooth surface would represent a new obstacle to cleanliness. And these sorts of structures and designs really will just accumulate dirt over time, no matter the efforts put into slowing that down.

   This inner conflict raises all kinds of questions within me about the actual value of cleanliness, and about the balance that architecture creates and enforces between certain feelings we might want to have within our homes and the nature of our day to day lives within them.

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2. 8bitsruleJan 2022
   Beats big debt all to hell, as well as the sort of grind-immersion that more and more are realizing is unhealthy and unsustainable.

   Surprising to find that the old guru of 'enoughism' Lloyd Kahn ('Shelter' editor of Whole Earth Catalog) is online and still kicking. Anyone interested in alternative shelter will find inspiration in his books. [https://www.lloydkahn.com/]

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