The need for shelter is one of mankind's most basic, and mankind has
been inventive in creating homes to fill this need. This book looks at
the principal types of wooden and stick frame structures built around
the world, and examines how their shape and form reflect cultural and
cosmological considerations as well as climatic and utilitarian ones.
The book charts the gradual shift from the circular homes of nomads to
the rectangular ones favored by settled people, and examines the new
geodesic experiments of the 20th Century.
- Explore simple home materials: grasses, woven panels, bamboo, canvas,
skin and bark
- Learn the characteristics of Native American tipis, yurts and their
variations, and Bedouin tents
- Discover construction principles that make simple homes sound:
squared timber and pegged mortise and tenon joints, geodesic domes, and
triangularity