Yurts: Living in the Round [Anglais] [Broché]

Becky Kemery's book Yurts; Living in the Round is like a good meal; well prepared, visually stimulating, flavorful, easy to digest, nourishing (both physically and spiritually) and above all validating. I realized how much the concept of designing and living in round spaces validates much of the emphasis in our work when building with earthbags, especially below ground. Validating because it reinforces natures basic design principles; round is sound. Square may be fair but round is sound. In a round house you will never feel cornered. I can't wait to build one on top of a (round!) Earthbag root cellar!

Yurts: Living in the Round journeys from Central Asia to modern America and reveals the history, evolution, and contemporary benefits of yurt living. One of the oldest forms of indigenous shelter still in use today, yurts have exploded into the twenty-first century as a multi-faceted, thoroughly modern, utterly versatile, and immensely popular modern structure whose possibilities are still being explored. Kemery introduces the innovators who redesigned the yurt and took it from back country trekking and campground uses to modern permanent homes and offices.

BECKY KEMERY encountered her first yurt at a retreat center in the early 1990s. Since then, she has lived in four different yurts in three states, through both harsh winters and scorching summers, in community situations and solo.

When Becky gives advice through the pages of this book, it is as an insider, someone who has made mistakes and knows the potential pitfalls as well as the sheer joy of living in a beautiful round space. Having purchased yurts from different companies and then set them up, she knows the importance of clear instructions and customer service from a good company. Becky's sources of heat have ranged from propane heaters to wood stoves and radiant heat from hot springs. She has lived with a cob (adobe) floor and has built and insulated her own yurt deck.

Becky currently lives on a permaculture-based homestead in the mountains of northern Idaho in a setting surrounded by herb and vegetable gardens. Moose and wild turkeys pay regular visits, and she enjoys the occasional moonlit serenade by coyote chorales through the walls of her forest green yurt.

In addition to writing, Becky also works as a union tradeshow carpenter and workshop caterer. In 2002, she founded the North Idaho Public Forum on Sustainability (PFOS), which sponsors monthly forums on topics relating to sustainability, and she started the Sustainable Living Collection, which includes books, videos, and journals, at her local library. He articles on natural building can be found online.

Those who make the pilgrimage to Dickinson's Reach (named for poet Emily Dickinson) find a land outside of modern technology's grasp. Here you'll find no phones, television, or computers: there are no traffic sounds. This is a working homestead, but without chainsaws cutting firewood or tractors molding earth. Not even the background hum of a refrigerator disturbs the silence, which is deep and still. One hears only birdsong and human conversation, the sound of an axe falling on firewood, and crooked knives hollowing out wooden spoons and bowls.