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The Clothesline
Everyone washes and dries clothes. Most of us have early memories of clotheslines and of the simpler times they represent. Even people who don't hang their clothes out have fond feelings for a time when towels hung out on the line smelled like spring. What is a clothesline? A clothesline can be colorful Amish quilts hanging out on the front porch of an Iowa farmhouse, an old-fashioned skirted bathing suit drying on a rusty nail in a Maine summer house, a long row of dish towels haphazardly hung on a ranch house line, wool socks drying on a steam radiator in a tiny New York walk up, white sheets flapping furiously in a fierce prairie wind that comes just before the rain or blue jeans frozen stiff on a wintry line in Montana. Hanging laundry on a line is one of modern life's luxuries. It represents time. Time to be alone. Time to think, even to meditate, accompanied by the repeated actions of hanging clothes--stooping, straightening, lifting, hanging, breathing, watching the clouds. There is a spirituality in the simple, positive actions of this everyday activity. Portable Houses
Portable houses are getting more attention today than they've had since the western frontier closed. And this "new nomadism" concept calls for living small, taking advantage of new technologies, and being free to travel. The idea of a portable house--of traveling while accompanied by our favorite possessions--is endlessly appealing. It starts when we are still children, listening with fascination to stories of pioneers living out of prairie schoolers for months at a time while slowly making their way out West. That sense of adventure does not leave us when we become adults; it just intensifies. The portable houses of today have to be cozy and warm, but they also have to be practical. They must fit with our idea of simplifying our lives, of living lightly on the land, yet must have a technological component. We may want to travel small, but we also want our favorite creature comforts--radio, CD, wireless Internet access, GPS, iPhone, iPad, and iPod. Folks who enjoy living on the move cut across a broad spectrum--from young people just getting started to retirees following the sun. The portable houses they choose to call home cut across an equally broad spectrum--from old steel shipping containers to shiny Boeing jets, from vintage trailers to new RVs, from tents, tepees and yurts to floating homes, from remodeled sheep wagons to restored train cars. While traveling around the country putting together this book, we met so many people who wanted to share their portable home ideas with us. One young architect, Mike Latham, designed a six-foot-square steel-and-acrylic box with a bed on top and storage below. Randy Carlson, who restores Volkswagen campers to their original condition said, "They have such a great demeanor, and they make you take a little more time with your travels." Jay Shafer, an art professor at the University of Iowa, build a tiny, charmingly Victorian home on wheels. It cost just $42,000 to build and used only 4,800 pounds of building materials. Page Hodel learned plumbing and carpentry from do-it-yourself books in order to turn a 1972 International Harvester school bus into a comfortable and road-worthy home. Jennifer Siegal, associate professor of architecture at Woodbury University in Los Angeles and principal of Office of Mobile Design, has watched this trend develop over the past few years. She says, "You're not bound or rooted to place. It's an idea that goes back to nomads through history. I see our society responding quite well to that due to new technologies, the global economy, and other such factors." Throughout her career she has focused on various aspects of mobile architecture, designing several 40-x-12-fool mobile structures using packing crates and retired shipping containers. |
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