What do you think?
Rate this book
The Integral Urban House: Self Reliant Living in the City
The Integral Urban House: Self Reliant Living in the City is a comprehensive guide to achieving a completely sustainable urban lifestyle by creating a mini-ecosystem where residents grow their own fruits and vegetables, raise chickens, rabbits, and fish, recycle 90% of their waste, solar heat their hot water, and use a variety of other alternative technologies, all on a 1/8-acre city lot. Long considered the bible of urban homesteading, this book is the result of four years of living with and refining the systems of the Integral Urban House in Berkeley, California, a collaborative project which combined the collective skills of the members of the Farallones Institute to develop a center for creating and testing experimental, ecologically stable and resource-conserving living systems. With its vision of an intimate connection between the urban habitat and ecological principles The Integral Urban House will inspire and empower people to act within their own communities to create places where they can live more sustainably.
494 pages, Paperback
First published June 12, 1979
7 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 19, 2008
I've dragged this book with me through every phase and city of my life. When I lost track of it, I bought another one. When it went out of print, I borrowed a copy from the library and then paid for it. (Don't think ill of me. This was before the age of alibris and the Internet. I've not done it again since.) There is a holiness in nailing your life to the earth, in understanding that we are part of a bigger network of existence. This is the how-to book.
September 19, 2021
As Gary Goosman said in his short’n’sweet review here, “This was a creative force many years ago and still has lots of great ideas.” In recent years, you could say ‘it’s become a real used-bookstore find’. The book — quite interesting as some sort of landmark of a celebrated environmentally-activistic time — displays and explains some genuine DIY ingenuity. Context: before the age of practical Youtube sharing of all sorts. The authors were committed & serious... in the days when more folks could afford to acquire an old house to re-do.
September 15, 2013
I like the philosophy of the authors, and wholeheartedly agree with the 10 Thrival Commandments :)
A first step toward self-reliance is to list our most basic needs:
Food that provides us with sufficient calories or energy and a balanced nutrition for our bodies to carry on normal metabolic processes as well as to resist invasion by pathogens or assaults by toxicants.
Uncontaminated water to drink and clear air to breath
A method of managing our own wastes so they do not create conditions that impair our health
Protection from the extremes of weather
Freedom from pests and pestilence
In spite of the awesome interdependence of all humans, a large number of us can cultivate a measure of self-reliance or what was once referred to as “Yankee ingenuity.”
The house is the interface between the body and environment, a physiological buffer. The house, though not necessarily the family home, is the key social environment (the birth, growing, living, dying, meeting and learning place). The house is a symbol of both ourselves and the world, our earth. Your “house” is where you get your necessities of life.
the Farallones Institute purchased what was to become the Integral Urban house in the neighborhood in serious jeopardy of being lost to land speculators. Industry and Berkeley city officials were considering condemning the dilapidated homes on our block and converting the neighborhood into an industrial park.
PERT = Planning, Evaluations, Review technique
Ten Thrival Commandments
Thous shalt honor the mystery and subtlety of the universe which brought forth the ecosystem which is thy source; and recognize that its design exceeds the crude capacity of thy mind
Thou shalt not compartmentalize the ecosystem or assume that by knowing a part thou understandeth the whole
Thou shalt resist the narrowing of thy appreciation of the whole system by the preoccupations of thy work
Honor all experiences. Don’t perpetuate their mistakes. Respect the integrity of information
Thou shalt not reduce the information of the biosphere through extermination of species, destruction of unique configurations, or significant individual organisms
Thou shalt not take from the ecosystem more than is consistent with its continual well being. The energy and materials that flow through you are a temporary privilege providing opportunities for reasonable self-expression.
Thou shalt not divert more energy, material or space to the human species than is consistent with the continued health of the biosphere. Thou shalt not waste energy, materials or information
Thou shalt not spread false information. Thou shalt not pervert information to enhance profit or status
Do not exchange your best understanding of how things work for cheap social consensus
Look to thyself and thy surroundings. Do not try to be anyone else. Respect for self and nature have a common root.
A first step toward self-reliance is to list our most basic needs:
Food that provides us with sufficient calories or energy and a balanced nutrition for our bodies to carry on normal metabolic processes as well as to resist invasion by pathogens or assaults by toxicants.
Uncontaminated water to drink and clear air to breath
A method of managing our own wastes so they do not create conditions that impair our health
Protection from the extremes of weather
Freedom from pests and pestilence
In spite of the awesome interdependence of all humans, a large number of us can cultivate a measure of self-reliance or what was once referred to as “Yankee ingenuity.”
The house is the interface between the body and environment, a physiological buffer. The house, though not necessarily the family home, is the key social environment (the birth, growing, living, dying, meeting and learning place). The house is a symbol of both ourselves and the world, our earth. Your “house” is where you get your necessities of life.
the Farallones Institute purchased what was to become the Integral Urban house in the neighborhood in serious jeopardy of being lost to land speculators. Industry and Berkeley city officials were considering condemning the dilapidated homes on our block and converting the neighborhood into an industrial park.
PERT = Planning, Evaluations, Review technique
Ten Thrival Commandments
Thous shalt honor the mystery and subtlety of the universe which brought forth the ecosystem which is thy source; and recognize that its design exceeds the crude capacity of thy mind
Thou shalt not compartmentalize the ecosystem or assume that by knowing a part thou understandeth the whole
Thou shalt resist the narrowing of thy appreciation of the whole system by the preoccupations of thy work
Honor all experiences. Don’t perpetuate their mistakes. Respect the integrity of information
Thou shalt not reduce the information of the biosphere through extermination of species, destruction of unique configurations, or significant individual organisms
Thou shalt not take from the ecosystem more than is consistent with its continual well being. The energy and materials that flow through you are a temporary privilege providing opportunities for reasonable self-expression.
Thou shalt not divert more energy, material or space to the human species than is consistent with the continued health of the biosphere. Thou shalt not waste energy, materials or information
Thou shalt not spread false information. Thou shalt not pervert information to enhance profit or status
Do not exchange your best understanding of how things work for cheap social consensus
Look to thyself and thy surroundings. Do not try to be anyone else. Respect for self and nature have a common root.
February 28, 2025
It’s interesting how many people put a solar panel on their roof, put aluminium cans into their recycle bin and consider themselves to be environmentalists, but back in the 1970s, a house in California was redeveloped to be as environmentally friendly and afford its residence as sustainable environment as the technology of the day allowed. The house had rainwater storage tanks, recycling of greywater for laundry and sewage went into a basement composter. They had a beehive above a fish pond so the fish could eat the dead bees that were pushed out of the hive. They had a rabbit coup above a chicken pen so the chickens could peck the droppings for fly larvae. And it was the renovation of an existing suburban house, not a Greenfield development, where this took place. The features of this house are as relevant today as when it was written.
September 17, 2007
Very interested project by some folks in the 70's on living in a city but still coinciding with nature. Yes, they were probably dubbed 'hippies', but I prefer the term early leaders of the green movement in America. Many of their ideas are still being converted and used today in many different forms. From gardening and grey water systems, to composting toilets and bottled insulation. A look at the beginning of a movement that has just recently begun to affect the lives of ordinary Americans. We can do it guys!
Where there's a will there's a way!
Where there's a will there's a way!
January 29, 2010
Cindy Conner recommended this one!
November 25, 2011
great old hippie science book with lots of tables, graphs and trippy schematics.
January 31, 2012
Great ideas for hardcore green.
March 7, 2013
This was a creative force many years ago and still has lots of great ideas.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews