David Pearson (1) (1940–)

A slightly strange book...perhaps because it's a little dated but also because whilst, on the one hand drawing attention to real dangers in the environment (like Radon gas) it also promulgates ideas about getting better sleep with crystals. (Which I find hard to accept). As the title says it's about a more natural way of living. And by "natural" they really mean more primitive ...or going back to the old ways of doing things. So they are against composite board (because it's usually glued together with formaldehyde glues) and they are against plastics in the home due of the volatile organic gases that they can give off. Well there is some truth in all of this though in reading the book and reading about all the cancer causing compounds we surround ourselves with ....I find it remarkable that life expectancy has grown in leaps and bounds over the last 50 years in the developed world .....especially in my own country, Australia. If we are poisoning ourselves by living in dangerous houses...then it's not yet showing up in the death statistics.
There is a lot in here that is really good but just the smattering of "new-age" ideas (like aromatherapy .....with its emphasis on essential oils ....which can trigger off significant allergies in some people) to make me a little cautious in recommending it. Also it suffered from now being a bit dated. Solar energy and wind energy have advanced in a major way since this book was written 1n 1989...and this shows. Though I've since noted that there are newer editions out. Another thing that rather struck me was the cold climate bias throughout the book, despite having an Australian consultant involved. Yes there is a bit there on outdoor rooms and outdoor bathing etc., but I was struck by a heavy emphasis on heating and the hearth....which I guess, reflects the background of the author (and probably his main audience). But a lot of sound and timeless architectural advice throughout. I rather liked the book overall. So three stars from me.… (mere)

When I was a toddler, my parents built our timberframe home. This book wasn't published until after the house was built (1995), but seems to have been in line with their aesthetic sensibilities. I found it at their place over the holidays, and decided to read it, as I have been thinking about a place of my own.

In recent winters I've read other books about architecture—Michael Pollan's "A Place of My Own;" Tedd Benson's "Timberframe;" Catherine Slessor's "See-Through Houses;" Gestalt's "Stay Wild." Like this book, most of these others aren't recently-published (with the exception of "Stay Wild"), and have more to do with the aesthetic of my upbringing than the current moment.

I recently asked three architect friends for book recommendations related to residential Living Buildings. Nothing they recommended seemed worth following up on, so I ended up reading this instead.

The book has me thinking about what Andreas Weber says regarding gesture. Gesture, or gestalt, communicates the essence of something. When you are present and observing, it isn't hard to tap into. Our own bodies can metabolize the gestures that surround us. Living in the times we do, one of the primary gestures we encounter are of the "built environment" surrounding us. Residential homes—the places we spend most of our time (especially in this post-office era)—have an outsized impact on our daily experience.

The inquiry of this book is timeless. It includes a survey of traditional natural ways of building from across the world. It also looks at what were, in the early 1990s, a resurgence and reinvention of traditional natural building.

It seems this book, and its author, have been lost to the sands of time. Given the bent natural building in recent decades, I'm surprised that, in doing a web search, almost nothing shows up about David Pearson. Many of the projects he highlights at the end of the book have also since disappeared (although some have continued to persist and evolve).

The book is a quick and easy read—more than half of the page count are photos with detailed captions. This book certainly isn't the exhaustive magnum opus that Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language," has become; maybe this is one of the reasons it hasn't endured. That said, it is still a beautiful, genuine, and inspiring work. I wish there were more books being written today in this style!… (mere)