
This bizarre sculptural home is perhaps the best (and most extreme) example of Slow Design. Located in Cornville, Arizona, Eliphante was created with found materials over a period of 28 years by the artist Michael Kahn and his wife Leda Livant...

This bizarre sculptural home is perhaps the best (and most extreme) example of Slow Design. Located in Cornville, Arizona, Eliphante was created with found materials over a period of 28 years by the artist Michael Kahn and his wife Leda Livant...
Named for it's entrance (above) Eliphante and neighboring "buildings" are stretched along three acres of land. Made of driftwood and cast-off building supplies, the "Hippodome" is the large dome that Ms. Livant resides in. There is a piano, heat, electricty and water but the buildings are without a bathroom or toilet (there is a separate bath house that features a solar-heated shower). A Handmade Home tells the history of the place and offers some insight into it's free-form design:






The outdoor kitchen:

Kinda crazy, eh? Don't miss the complete slideshow, only about two-thirds of the images are posted here.
(Pics: David Kadlubowski)
This is nuts and I love it, even though it seems like living in Davy Jones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Jones_(Pirates_of_the_Caribbean)
view visualingual's profile
Amazing!
view callbob's profile
I swear that was a set in the Dark Crystal!
view sillahee's profile
Glee! I've been looking for info about this place ever since a friend told me she'd visited. Part of the fun was that my last name is Elefante, and the rest is that I love stuff like this! Luckily, Cornville isn't all that far from Phoenix, either, so now I can plan a visit!
view OneWallKitchen's profile
nice to see these kinds of places again. I grew up in a slew of handmade homes. Rarely did we have electricity or a heat source that wasn't woodburning.
I kind of miss the uniqueness of these houses.
view little green's profile
I thought the exact same thing, sillahee. What fun to live in a Jim Henson-like home, these pictures are stunning...
view HighSeas's profile
This is so cool and livable. Beats the pants off that church yesterday.
view Usbek de Perse's profile
This is such a tonic after all of those anal-retentive modernist interiors, which look awful if the barcelona ottoman is so much as half an inch out of alignment.
I wish I had the vision to create a home like this. I especially love how the freeform ceiling spirals down to merge seamlessly with the countertop in the kitchen. That is so cool.
view Blandwagon's profile
Wow. This is a dream house. Or maybe I mean this is just like a house in a dream. It's beautiful.
view y-bloc's profile
i'm sure my boyfriend and i (he's australian.. says a lot) will build something like this eventually when we retreat from society in the hills of australia. nice to see some inspiring pics to remind me it can be done!
view *heather leaf*'s profile
hippy skippy!
view buzzybee's profile