Built by Hand - Vernacular Buildings Around the World.

Built by Hand is a celebration of what is so uniquely diverse and yet similar in the buildings of different cultures around the world.
Beginning with the most basic ways that human beings have sought shelter-beneath the trees and stars, under the protection of a rock cliff or cave-this book traces the transformation of materials such as earth, stone, wood or bamboo into shelters that are both stationary and moveable.

Bill and Athena Steen are the authors of The Straw Bale House and The Beauty of Straw Bale. They are active in community building programs that teach low-income families how to build their own shelters, and known for their efforts to incorporate artistic techniques based on local and natural materials into the world of modern construction. They live in Elgin, Arizona. Yoshio Komatsu has been photographing buildings and people around the world for 25 years. His photographs were collected in the Japanese book Living on Earth, and his work is regularly published in books, magazines, and calendars throughout Japan. This is his first book in English. He and his wife, Eiko, live in Tokyo.