Why Look at Cabin Porn?

 This is a marvellous essay (and I mean essay, it's not a 2 minute thing to whizz through on Buzzfeed) about why we like looking at shedlike structures by Finn Arne Jørgensen, associate professor of history of technology and environment at Umeå University, Sweden, and published by Duke University Press (you can download a pdf of the whole thing from their site here).

Here's a couple of snippets to whet your appetite:

The rise of cabin porn as a visual genre reflects a growing international interest in cabins, shedworking, and rustic, exurban living off the grid — most of it romanticizing rural and low-tech lifestyles.

The images seem to say that we once lived in simpler conditions, in architecture closer to nature. We lived more productive and more honest lives. In the peace and quiet away from the distractions of modern life, we could listen to ourselves. The images of cabin porn whisper to us of this lost state of grace, of an age of wood and earth and things that were real and true. The cabins of cabin porn are as much ideas as actual places.... On the surface, the disembodied architecture of cabin porn seems to be a form of nostalgia, where the dream of the cabin becomes an arena for resolving an ambivalent relationship to technology and all the bothersome things of modern life.... In looking at cabin porn, trying to articulate exactly what is essential and desirable about the cabin, we are also looking at ourselves and who we aspire to be.

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Cabin Porn: book review

Cabin Porn Book Trailer from Cabin Porn on Vimeo.

We previewed the Cabin Porn book last month and since then we've been enjoying the actual thing. There are very few actual garden offices, but plenty of inspiration with chapters focusing on yurts, living underground, treehouses, and wilderness homesteads. It's not really a 'how to' book with in-depth advice on the nuts and bolts of building a shedlike structure, but there are plenty of detailed case studies which concentrate as much on the mindset and the reasons for going small as they do on what kind of broadaxe to buy. Fabulous illustrations, nicely designed, but could have done with an index and a Further Reading/links section. ----------------------------------------------------

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The sequel to Cabin Porn

I know many of you enjoyed the first Cabin Porn book (though I wish they'd have called it something else) so you will be pleased to hear that work is underway on a follow-up called Cabin Porn: Inside which will go through the keyhole to take a look inside readers' cabins. As they put it: "We’re excited to share that we’ve started our second book inspired by the most common question we receive, 'Can I see the inside of this cabin?'"

"Inside, will serve as a valuable reference for both the cabin builder and everyone seeking perspective on how to create spaces that just work — the ones that spellbind us in their warmth and ingenious simplicity. Inside will fill in where our first book left off, intimately showcasing hundreds more cabins and the small details their builders gave them.

Click the link above to submit your shedlike atmosphere for possible inclusion.
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Cabin Porn: Inside

The original Cabin Porn book has been a great success (though we wish they'd called it something else - even the publishers seem a bit uncomfortable as they refer to it as Cabin P*rn throughout their publicity bumph). Out on October 3 from Particular Books is the follow-up, Cabin Porn: Inside, again by Zack Klein, the co-founder of Vimeo.

So the focus this time round is more on the interiors of shedlike atmospheres around the world, as the publishers put it "offering close-ups of the stunning architecture and interior design that make them truly remarkable. With more timeless photography and new design stories, Cabin P*rn: Inside brings fresh inspiration for your quiet place somewhere".

You can enjoy a sample of the book here.

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Cabin Porn - the book

 

Many readers will be familiar with the Cabin Porn site and now there is a book inspired by it called 'Cabin Porn: Inspiration for your quiet place somewhere' which is published by Particular Books next week.  The original site was the brainchild of Zack Klein, technology entrepreneur and co-founder of Vimeo, and friends who built a cabin in the woods and then invited other people to contribute their own shedlike structures to the site (the most visitors come from the UK). The book is extremely well illustrated with examples of rural microarchitecture from all over the world, focusing on 10 cabins in detail with photographs by Noah Kalina and words by Steven Leckart. Well worth a browse.

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Cabin Porn

We're not big fans here at Shedworking of this recent-ish flurry of sites which focus on one subject (such as books) and then add 'porn' at the end for no real reason, but we'll make an exception for Cabin Porn which describes itself as "Inspiration for your quiet place somewhere" and is run by the people at Beaver Brook (itself an attractive Tumblr). You can even submit your own suggestions. Pictured above is the fabulous The Best Hut (The Tree Bach) by Jono Williams and friends in New Zealand, built out of recycled materials and featuring solar panels as well as, nice touch this, a remote-controlled drawbridge. Both sites are well worth a browse.
Thanks to Lloyd Alter for the alert.
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Cabin: Into the Woods With A Clueless Craftsman by Patrick Hutchison

One for the shedworker's bookshelf, Cabin by Patrick Hutchison is out next month from HarperCollins and has a bit of a Henry David Thoreau but with larger dollop of humour. It’s about outdoor living, renovation and DIY, the beauty of living and working in nature and the outdoors as well as Mr Hutchison's love for cabins.

Here's what the publishers say:

Working unhappily as a copywriter in the Pacific Northwest, scouring social media for ‘cabin porn’ in his spare time, Patrick came across an advert for a tiny, dilapidated cabin nestled deep in the forests of the Cascade Mountains. Scraping together his last few dollars, he bought the place for $7,500 and set about making it his own. Cabin is a beautifully written account of restoring a rural home with almost no woodworking experience, aided only by the kindness of friends, a collection of vicious power tools and countless cases of beer.

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Garden office in mid-air: Létající černý dům

If shedworking on terra firma is a bit tame for you, take a leaf out of Czech architects H3T's book and go for a garden office suspended in mid-air. It's called Létající černý dům or Flying Black House and is set up under the arch of on old railway bridge. Inside, there's a stove and a sleeping loft. As H3T put it: "It attracts attention, invites you to visit and raises questions."

Photos: BoysPlayNice

Via Cabin Porn on the Twitter ----------------------------------------------------

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Off Grid Life

Subtitled 'Your Ideal Home in the Middle of Nowhere', this book by Foster Huntington (author of the popular Van Life) is more aimed at the tiny house market but does include plenty of huts and shedlike buildings. It's heavy on images as you'd expect from a photographer and film-maker but still very pleasant. Here's the publisher's blurb:

After spending three years on the road living in a camper van, Foster Huntington continued his unconventional lifestyle by building a two-story treehouse. Foster, like many others, are finding freedom, tranquility, and adventure in living off the grid in unconventional homes.

Perfect for fans of Van Life and Cabin Porn and those who long for a quieter life, Off Grid Life showcases unique dwellings from all around the world. Organized into sections like tree houses, tiny houses, shipping containers, yurts, boathouses, barns, vans, and more, the 250 aspirational photographs feature enviable settings like stunning beaches, dramatic mountains and picturesque forests. Also included are images of fully designed interiors with kitchens and sleeping quarters as well as interviews with solo dwellers, couples, and families who are living this new American dream.

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The Anatomy of Sheds: book review

I hope you've got some space left on your shedworking bookshelf because here is another must-have from Jane Field-Lewis, hard on the heels of her excellent My Cool Treehouse earlier this year. Jane has written several excellent, small scale books on shedlike architecture but this is a weightier volume from Pavilion. Subtitled 'New Buildings from an Old Tradition', it features plenty of garden offices as well as other marvels of microarchitecture, around 50 in all, grouped under the headings of Backyard, Contemplative, Holidays, Workspaces, Studios & Workshops, Architectural, and Homes.

Some of these will be familiar to regular readers of Shedworking - such as Paul Smith's garden office - but there are plenty of examples which will be new to even the most hardened shedreader. Each chapter is, as always with Jane, nicely written, but the advantage of the bigger format is that the photos of each build can be given a really decent showing (the endpapers are especially lovely). It would be unfair to call it a coffee table book, but it would happily grace one.  If you bought and enjoyed Cabin Porn, you'll also like this. In fact you'll like it more, because it's better. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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