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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #337038 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

Review
"more than just a collection of

amazing photos" -- The Last Straw Journal, December 1, 2003

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

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

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 -- Publishers Weekly, October 20, 2003

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 )

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 )

[Built by Hand] is the most comprehensive and groundbreaking documentation of hand-made architecture ever published. -- Prarie Avenue Bookshop, Holiday Gift Guide 2003

From the Inside Flap
This stunning and truly amazing collection of photographs by Japanese photographer Yoshio Komatsu celebrates traditional/vernacular architecture around the world.

Komatsu's photographs tell the story of a disappearing world of buildings that have been constructed by ordinary people who, as builders and homesteaders, have given artistic, modest and sensible form to their daily needs and dreams. Sometimes accidental, often asymmetrical, and utilizing materials that are naturally close at hand, these buildings with their molded curves and softened lines convey a beauty that is both personal and human. Quietly and almost without notice, they outwit the might of modern machinery with simple tools and materials that welcome, encourage and amplify use of the human hand.

Shelter the Human Family is a celebration of what is so uniquely diverse and yet similar in the buildings of different cultures around the world.

Beginning with the most basic ways that human beings have sought shelter-beneath the trees and stars, under the protection of a rock cliff or cave-this book traces the transformation of materials such as earth, stone, wood or bamboo into shelters that are both stationary and moveable.

The final chapter takes a look at the need for a modern vernacular. Not the type that seeks to duplicate and imitate the examples in this book, but rather one that is inspired by finding a responsive and sensitive balance between the know-how and wisdom of the past with that which is sustainable and modern.

The text is a combined effort of Yoshio's wife Eiko, who is his regular travel/work partner, and Athena and Bill Steen.

About the Author
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.

Customer Reviews

Best book on verancular architecture ever
Without qualification, this is the greatest account of vernacular architecture, indigenous shelter, and traditional folk-built home images ever published. And it won't likely be surpassed, since fanatical photographer Yoshio Komatsu spent 25 years travelling the globe to document the full jaw-dropping variety of shelter on earth. He's been EVERYWHERE. I can't think of a remote region of Asia, Africa, South American and Europe that he missed; most of the styles are new and stimulating to me, and I've been around. While the classic small tome of Architecture Without Architects hints dreamily at this diversity, Built By Hand completes the thought by explicitly celebrating this abundance in vivid in-your-face technicolor. It's in a different league from all previous vernacular architecture books. This one is a stupendous 480-page cornucopic tome overflowing with 700 photographs, and thousands of details, hopes, and design ideas. Totally breathtaking, totally awesome! If this doesn't get you to grab a hammer, nothing will.

Ultimate Book on Vernacular Architecture
There has never been a photographer of buildings like Yoshio Komatsu. He's been shooting photos around the world for 25 years now and this stunning book is the result. It's a spectacular photo journey, like a film, around the planet, giving you rare glimpses of shelter in every corner of the earth. The photos are absolutely wonderful. Text and editing are by straw bale gurus Bill and Athena Steen, and Eiko Komatsu. This is like an updated, expanded, technicolor, improved-upon Architecture Without Architects. Wow!

10 Great Books List
As books go this one makes it to my top ten. People are always using the word venacular out of context, this book puts it right back. The pictures in this book speak a thousand words. Use whats local, works with materials found around you. I live on an Island on the West coast, lots of rain. There are so many people on this Island building 'green houses' with straw bales. There are so many people who are going to have mouldy homes!!! Venacular learn the word. Live in a home made of the materials around you! Buy this book, and learn.