Lloyd Kahn

Last week I had coffee with Lloyd Kahn, a 74-year old shelter guru who has helped to change the way that people live and build. He is a man that lives to build and builds to live but also lives in the buildings that he has built from a deep passion for life; this cycle of activity and integration most certainly accounts for his youthful vitality.

I was interested in talking to Lloyd for a number of reasons. First of all, he knows lots about the southwestern communes that have so entranced me. He published two how-to manuals about domes before renouncing them as a good way to live. Lloyd was also the shelter publisher for Whole Earth Catalogs and was most likely a regular visitor at Libre and Drop City and maybe even the Alloy conference. Needless to say, he was at the center of it all.

Our time together was short but I was lucky to hear a bit more about his time as Faculty of the uber-alternative Pacific High School (more about that in a later post), about the successes and failures of the hippie generation, and about the on-going project of expanding consciousness. He shared this short film with me. It's made by a Stanford student named Jason Sussberg and captures Lloyd's persona, perspective, and hand-made house. Check it our here. http://jasonsussberg.com/SHELTER.mov

Lloyd's recently come out with a new book, Builders of the Pacific Coast. You can buy it and others of his books at http://www.shelterpub.com