MORE ON KEN KERN'S SLIP FORM

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But at the U of Oregon we were taught to keep open and imaginative minds: we were taught to consider all alternatives however bizarre or unconventional. The photos and description of this school project (as described in the Nov. 15, 1949 issue of THE INTERPRETER) were more than intriguing . . . so I decided to visit the project in person.

Architecturally, the building was rather uninspired. But the slip-forming technique was entirely successful: over 1700 square feet of shell area built entirely by unskilled labor at a cost of $2000. An equal amount was required to completely finish the building.

As it turned out my visit to this Brookville, Ohio, School of Living demonstrated alternative structural techniques . . . but even more importantly, it demonstrated alternative life styles. Mildred Loomis, the school's education director and head slip-form operator exposed me to some of the problems (and solutions) of living that are only now becoming acceptable to more than a handful of fanatic idealists. The School of Living building turned out to be a good demonstration of what can be accomplished by unskilled (female yet!) labor working on minimal budget. It gave me occasion to completely revise my learned facts and opinions as regards architects, building contractors, building inspectors, commercially available tools and materials.

As someone once said, "A little experience disproves a hell of a lot of theory!" If two women can put together a 30 by 40 school building, mixing hundreds of yards of concrete and forming doublethick walls using a simple slip-form, then certainly a man and wife team—-with perhaps a little help from their friends—can erect a simple home shelter.

The concept seemed worthy of further exploration. "Exploration", however, became a formidable endeavor: library research was the simplest part; world-wide travel the most enjoyable; actual on-the-job skill-learning the most time-consuming. It took ten years to get my book, THE OWNER-BUILT HOME, all together . . . and it all started with the simple slip-form. In the final Magnum Opus, however, the slip-form has less than one page coverage out of a total of 300.

That single page represents a trip from Oregon to Ohio, then to Indiana to confer with slip-form inventor John Gieger; a side trip while in Sweden to observe a novel, lowcost sawdust-cement slip-form construction process; an acquaintance with Milton Wend in Massachusetts, who built houses in the 1920's using a modified slip-form method developed by Ernest Flagg; a collaboration with John Magdiel in Los Angeles, who patented an ingenious slip-forming machine. From all this experience and research I was able to devise my own personal brand of slip-forming technique. I found that the slip-form was especially adaptable for building circular structures, using spiral-layered courses swung from a central radius-pole.

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