Cabin: How to Build a Retreat in the Wilderness and Learn to Live with Nature weaves journalist Will Jones's personal account of building a remote woodland home in rural Canada with a wide-ranging history of cabin construction and illustrated practical guidance.
About This Book
The desire to leave the city and build something by hand in nature is as old as settlement itself — and as urgent as ever. Will Jones traces cabin-building from the dwellings of indigenous peoples and New World settlers through to contemporary Nordic summer homes and artists' retreats, mapping the architectural styles, vernacular traditions, and evolving techniques that define the typology. Running through this history is Jones's own story: the decision to uproot his family from London and construct a remote cabin in rural Canada, inspired by building practices from around the world. The result is part memoir, part cultural history, part practical manual — covering site selection, orientation, foundations, and interior design with equal seriousness.
Key Features
- 256 pages of personal narrative, architectural and cultural history, and illustrated practical instruction on cabin construction
- Published by Thames & Hudson, 2010
What You'll Discover
- How cabin-building traditions differ across cultures — from indigenous dwellings and settler homes to Nordic summer houses and artists' retreats — and what each reveals about vernacular architecture
- The practical decisions behind a self-build cabin: site selection and orientation, foundation types, and approaches to interior design
- The personal and psychological dimensions of choosing to build in wilderness, told through Jones's own experience relocating from London to rural Canada
- Why the cabin endures as an architectural and cultural ideal, and what contemporary interest in off-grid living owes to historical building practice
About the Author
Will Jones is a journalist and author who left London to build a remote cabin in rural Canada with his young family. His writing draws on that first-hand experience of wilderness living alongside broad research into the global history of cabin construction.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 256
- Dimensions: 129 × 198 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780500298640
- Publisher: Thames & Hudson
- Publication Date: 2010
Perfect For: Architects and designers drawn to vernacular and off-grid construction, self-builders researching cabin typologies, and readers interested in the cultural history of living in wilderness.