The weather finally looks good enough to erect one I’ve been working on.
Was wondering if anyone else out there built their own shed, structures or outbuildings without using a purchased set of plans or kit?
Got to pricing the kits at retail centers and anything worth of size was getting pretty pricey.
Replies
Haven't done a teepee, but lots of sheds and one rocketship. The rocket ship was plywood cirlces, top and bottom, stablized with three 1x4s running vertically until I could mount the metal roofing panels at the cylinderical surface of the rocket.
Sheds? I always frame them with 2x4 on 16" centers and sheath with plywood or cedar or metal (or even lathe for a gazebo sort of building). Two courses of pressure-treated 2x4s for the bottom plates and you're done if it has a gravel floor. But pouring a little slab makes it a lot nicer.
Plans? Plans?? Don't need no stinkin' plans! This is Breaktime! What do you need?
Al Mollitor, Sharon MA
Where is RonT's shed?
It's on the couch with him taking a nap. Still in his head cause it's only a dream. I'll never have a place to stay if I go to Cali.Who Dares Wins.
Dont sweat it Gunner ol buddy, I talked to Bugsey and he said hes got plenty of room for ya. See I got your back pal
Darkworksite4:
El americano pasado hacia fuera ase la bandera
Tanxs pal.Who Dares Wins.
Most of these guys know what they're doing so don't listen to them. I on the other hand plunge right in without having seen a map or been there before. I needed a shed for my place in NC. I got a set of Simpson Strong Tie shed plans at Home Depot, precut the wood, labeled it, wrapped it up with duct tape, and drove up there from Florida. Did well until I went up my steep drive and dumped most of the load out off my plastic bedliner. All I needed when I got there was my cordless drill and a hammer. Worked great. Except I didn't end up building my house on the site where I built the shed.
Check out Simpson. You'll buy the same materials if you are building on your own without the other kit builders margin. Besides, I've seen their stock. The 2 X's are <#2's.
12x16 on concrete slab
my own plans
saltbox-type style
bobl Volo, non valeo
14'x20'shed, no plans
Edited 6/19/2004 8:36 pm ET by butch
Edited 6/19/2004 9:08 pm ET by butch
nuttin' special 16 x 24 run-in shed took a weekend and a day to frame ,fascia, roof two guys... slainte' b
Build the spaceship. Fly to my house. Help me finish my shed. I didn't have any plans. Learn from this<G> Don't worry, we can fix that later!
took me a month of weekends, but turned out pretty good..."there's enough for everyone"
damn son your good......."expectations are premeditated resentments"
So that's the economy shed...
What happens when you get serious..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
No pklans...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
serious?...still workin' on this one..."there's enough for everyone"
Glad you reminded me...
I'll get those inlays right out and over to ya... Don't wanna hold ya up...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
Wow, is that a bamboo crane? Don't worry, we can fix that later!
good tool rental places around here..."there's enough for everyone"
all right..... I even posed in front of mine.
You even color coordinated.Who Dares Wins.
no prob hey bugsey said he didnt want any snoreing cuz he dont want to be bothered while he's watching blind date...
Darkworksite4:
El americano pasado hacia fuera ase la bandera
It'll be just like home then.Who Dares Wins.
Spaceship? ya crazy but shoot, it's a riot.
So we got the launch / landing site ready...
Let's go for it......
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
Nah, it leans in on itself so it's a teepee.
Not to drag you guys kicking and screaming back to 'traditional values', but....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Ah, maple syrup. The good life.
Naw.. I think he is just boiling down those old tire... The 2 ya see in the pic are next...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
Is that painted osb?
Three coats of gloss exterior latex, 13 years ago. Amazes me still. Keep wondering when the walls are gonna disintegrate and I'll have to put some real siding on the studs....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
If the sun doesn't hit it direct I'll bet it'll last a long time.
Aspenite...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
IMERC
that pix reminds me of when I lived in the foothills up top a mtn in Virginia.
Same set up for the still I used to frequent.
Be well
andyThe secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Yes Indeedy--when you make it like that, you can taste the smoke on your waffles Sunday mornings....
That shed was an emergency job; had to empty my apartment in town with no warning at a time when I had, ahem, about two and a half cents to rub together. Borrowed $300 and built that outta 2x4s and OSB. Added the shed roof for the extra firewood a few years later. It became the 'model' for the custom $5000 garden shed I built for a customer a few more years later (the one in the B&W pic), which is finished a little more luxuriously, LOL....
Didn't have a building permit to build my shed either. Inspector stopped by one day to ask about that. I told him it was an ice fishing cabin I'd built for someone who was supposed to pick it up, but that he hadn't paid for it, so I was gonna keep it till he did. Last I heard about it. Glad he didn't look inside for the hole in the floor....Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Horse Hockey...
That's a dome for the spaceship radar guidence systems...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
Got the bottom half hexes and the pentagons in before the threat of thunderstorms.
aside from all that good work... it's a dopler dome...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
ya might wanna paint it black an white..a really big soccer ball
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
ROAR!Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
another step
Rez,
Nice project! I got a 14'x 10'6'' going on right now , I like to call it the mother in law apartment. Have the floor framed & plywooded,all walls cut ready to nail together will cut raffters this weekend & put it together 4th July weekend. Will try a photo shot this weekend.
On a side note, I remember about 20 years ago, buddy & my self hung the drywall in a Dome house. It was real strange as the more rock we hung ,the echos of any sound would change, could never tell which direction the sound was from. Sure was a lot of cutting, if I remember right it was 2 triangles out of each 4'x8' sheet. The guy that did the tape job had his work cut out for him. Looks like you will need a few ridge cap shingles!
Looks like you will need a few ridge cap shingles!
heh heh
Sheesh... Reminds me of some of my early carpentry... I was involved in building a few domes, treehouses and other odd structures back around '75... The international Hostel is still going strong down Georgia after almost 30 years! I even have a pic from when they were almost new.
Yeah... I was a hippie... :-) --- BRICK
"They say that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. I like to color outside the lines...and then eat the crayons." ~ Me
man, that's some groovey green wall covering in that last pic.
Yeah... Some groovy chick form the Netherlands painted that about 10 years ago... She is really quite talented.... that's a 60 foot dome she painted too. --- BRICK
"They say that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. I like to color outside the lines...and then eat the crayons." ~ Me
Never seen a sixty. Did you build it?
No... I was just a hammer swingin pothead back then... I was one of many that volunterred to work on the project over the years. I did built some of the treehouses tho... --- BRICK
"They say that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. I like to color outside the lines...and then eat the crayons." ~ Me
Yeah... I was a hippie... :-)
was? why would you give that up? - -
be recommitted..."there's enough for everyone"
I don't think this configuration is a true dome structure in that almost every dome I've seen made from standard machined components has the triangular design you mentioned and use some type of hub system when joining the framework.
I bypassed the hub stuff and made the flat hex and pent panels instead. It'll either work or be a major catastrophe.
I'm coming in under a thousand bucks for the total materials. Spent as much on shingles as the rest of the supplies. Got the osb back in the the golden years of $5 a sheet.
Now I'm wondering about a lowcost utility dome built on this frame design using sheet metal roofing instead of osb and shingles.
i think i co-authored the 'diary of a mad builder'.
Splinter, you need to build a small dome up there in the spacious plains. These guys are getting serious with it. Check 'em out...
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/09/12/sustainable-homes-from-easy-domes/
View Image
This one was like 4 years or so back. My first one was in 1980. The guys in the link were using like 3x4 timbers but a small shed can use 2x2s and maybe even 1x2s.
View Image
c'mon now...
I think that shipping from the Faroe Islands would kill me... <G>
I've just spent over an hour strolling around that website, now bookmarked in a new file folder called "Archidreams". I was attracted to the wall gardens, naturally....
View ImageWHAT THE PUCK???
Living Wall is a steel mesh encapsulated system which is planted with robust, drought tolerant plants and shrubs including wild flowers and grasses if desired. Utilising a simple irrigation method (ideally using re-cycled water) the Living Wall will mature and develop to give all year round colour and interest and provide a vegetated habitat and green space without encroaching on or destroying valuable land. Living Walls will require some regular maintenance.
http://www.sky-garden.co.uk/pages/living-walls.php
Those green things are castoff fiberglass sewagepump housings from a local fiberglass plant which gives me additional lumber storage beneath the dome. Tough as nails
and were free.
I doubt a green roof would work here - it would just burn up without frequent watering - but i'm going to give some thought to what i could grow on a vertical surface in HH2. Strawberries, maybe.
I was working on the HH2 today, got one 49' bed built and filled and the other formed. I'm going to have OSB ends this time...much easier and there are some advantages to having a solid OSB wall there.
Your fiberglass containers would be excellent in a hoophouse for water/heat retention. People use barrels, too, and place growing trays across them for an early start. More stuff to ponder all winter... WHAT THE PUCK???
Those fiberglass housings are open on both ends so their water retaining properties are minimal.
be got a hole in the middle and it goes clean thru.
What type of insulation do you have in your house?Seems as open as it is up there the winter winds would be atrocious.
I see...i thought they were containers...containing...instead of housings...hou...never mind. It seems if the ends are open, then you wouldn't have much bearing. I guess i'm just not understanding them at all.
After i moved the house here, it got pretty well stripped. I re-sheathed the exterior before re-siding, which allowed me to blow in some dense-pack cells and add a layer of foam to the exterior for a thermal break on the 2x4 walls.
I'd done a thermal break in the last 2x4-wall house on the interior for a huge comfort difference without adding more insulation to the FG in the walls.
I blew cells in the ceiling, too, to the depth of the 2x8 joists. I intend to also add a layer of foam and them put a floor in for attic storage, or i'd have blown deeper.
I just called the propane company to set up my pre-pay contract this year. They said i used 250 gallons of propane last year for all my DHW and heating. That seems ridiculously low to me, but i also burned wood, less than two cords of low-BTU lodgepole. WHAT THE PUCK???
There is a small collar around the base that gives about an inch wide bearing surface
but the soil is mostly sand and it sits on a small knoll thus no puddling even after the hardest of rains.
So, there really are trees in Montana then? It looks fairly barren from what I gather from old b&w westerns on tv.
Is there sagebrush blowing around up there too?
and all I can hear is the old cattlecall. be a Son of the Pioneers
There aren't any trees in my immediate area, but i can see them from here. It's all a function of water, which is a function of aspect and soil type, among other things. The foreground of the picture is what the ground around my house looks like, sagebrush prairie, but the mountains are treed except for the burned-over and clear-cut areas. You're looking at the east side of the Bitterroot Range. Trees on the west side of the opposing side of the valley start growing much higher on the slopes. The valley soil can be 35' of black dirt, impenetrable clay, glacial till, or pure sand like mine, all in the same square mile.
MT is huge and the eastern side is pretty rugged, treeless, and dry. Eddie Arnold did a pretty good job with "Cattle Call", too.WHAT THE PUCK???
man, what a great scene!
Reminds of my first hitchhiking adventure that ended up camping in the Scenic Park Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs
when waking up and seeing the wide vista of mountain ranges in the distance, I swore to myself that'd I'd never wake up to a bedroom wall again.
well, the best laid plans of mice.
be sad but true but we got trees
for your entertainment...
http://www.eltlivingwalls.com/photo_gallery.php
Now you've got my wheels turning...
I notice many of the planters have low-light plants like draceana and maranta. If i had one indoors, putting it on wheels would be a good idea. You could plant both sides, then turn each side to the window as needed for light. Otherwise, i think you'd get some leggy growth.
I saved a pic of an outdoor bench with wheelbarrow characteristics
View Image
that i believe you posted one time. I had the idea of combining a planter box into it and a trellis to make a private seating area around my little pond i set in this year. That might be too much to combine in a unit, though. A living wall would be pretty snazzy instead...and i just might be able to use the graywater to do it. I set up the plumbing to do that when i replumbed this house, but so far haven't had a way to use it.
WHAT THE PUCK???
I've meant to ask you before, maybe i did....what are those green-colored supports at the corners of your dome?WHAT THE PUCK???
rez
This is pretty appropriate, I'm going up to the north east part of Iowa tomorrow to look at some land to buy for a hunting spot.
I was thinking about having a couple of containers hauled in if its $$$-feasible, if not I was thinking about a structure like this(the one you posted), figured I could build the components here and haul them up and erect them. As time allowed I could add pods onto the main one for more space, ie, bedrooms......
What's the size of that one that you built?
I bought a bunk of 1/2" osb, got if for $4.25 a sheet so I got that part covered!
Doug
That dome is built of 47" sticks which gives about 18ft diameter and dang if I remember the height but is high enough for a 2nd floor sleeping loft and being able to stand up inside the cupola.
The panels are rather easy to build and actually could be site built pretty fast from the precut components or with a generator just make up the components there on site.
The tolerances aren't needed to be that tight and I just used my Paslode Impulse and nailed the sides together and clinched them over. Hasn't moved yet.snorK*
be if you got 5minutes I can tell ya all I know
So what did you decide to do?
I have a couple idears on bettering the dome structures if yer game on them.
Those containers can be placed parallel with one perpendicular in back joining both as a back wall with trusses across the sides for a sweet size building.
Bears would have a hard time getting into those things.
Endo Shuhei’s Bubbletecture H is constructed almost entirely from locally-sourced Japanese cypress trees - an exceptionally durable and lightweight wood. The bubble’s exterior is shielded with a 1.2mm layer of steel that acquires a thin layer of rust-red coloring as it ages, and up top it features a partial green roof made with local moss.
View Image
Ankeny man builds a dome to call home
Boyt and his wife, Mabel, live under four inverted-bowl-shaped roofs in what is known as a monolithic dome house.There are so few of these houses in Iowa — maybe four, Boyt estimates — that his home, plunked on a rise overlooking Southwest Oralabor Road, does call attention to itself.
View Image
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20081025/LIFE03/810250308/-
Edited 10/26/2008 12:51 am ET by rez
Is this a shed, spaceship, or a rounded teepee?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv3SII568v0&feature=related
that, my friend, is an instant bunker....
pretty cool.
<!----><!----><!---->
I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
Take life as a test and shoot for a better score each day. Matt Garcia
http://www.concretecanvas.org.uk/
A lot of creative thinking gets done concerning modular buildings.
Sometimes I wonder how far people will go...44541.412
Edited 11/24/2008 11:54 am ET by rez
Some fella built a whoop house...
http://www.gardendome.com/octa5/A1/index.htm
View Image
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
Edited 12/28/2008 9:46 am ET by rez
The collar ties and center posts look like they were added as first aid, when the ridge started to collapse. You can see in earlier shots how sway-backed it was getting. I feel for them...i had to go out and pull the snow off my hoophouse when the ceiling began to flatten pretty dramatically - and quickly! - a couple days ago. On the shorter HHs i'd built before, that hadn't happened, so i assumed the snow would be shed on this one as well, esp since the end panels are so much sturdier. Not so. I speculate that the shorter length of the earlier hoophouses kept the snow from accumulating bec the snow was more susceptible to wind removal. This one is a foot wider, too, bec i raised the hoops up on the beds, instead of taking them clear to the ground.It was good information, actually, and decided a question i'd had earlier about whether to remove the covering at season's end. I've also talked to some other folks who said if the ground doesn't freeze hard, wire worms become a problem. The HH can still be surprisingly warm inside when the sun shines. I've been noodling around on that sight for an hour or so...very good illustrations of the different kinds of construction. Hard to buy the "green" hype, though, when you see a 4500 s.f. house covered in vinyl siding. This is butt-ugly, IMO: http://www.naturalspacesdomes.com/domes_under_construction/cleary.htm More interesting stuff...domes meet Larsen trusses: http://www.naturalspacesdomes.com/Sales/1234%20(Custom).jpg
i'll be back........Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
heh
That pic in the last link.
One of the funny things about domes is the unique desire they create when building that makes one want to stand and shout from the top of the framing once it gets up there.
I've a 20ft long hoop house covered with greenhouse 6mil that I sprayed white after discovering how friggin hot it got in there during the summer even with the doors and vents opened.
That white paint dropped the temp way way down to a normal similar to whatever the outdoor temp is.
After the first winter and playing around having to pull the snow off the bowing bows I put a wall shelf lengthwise to support the center which holds the collection of interior vicky trim from several homes salvaged over the years.
Friggin' D12 palace I have going here.
In these pics I'm thinking some folk just like playing around with angles...
View Image
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
Edited 12/28/2008 8:18 pm ET by rez
I missed that story, if you've shown those pics before....do tell. Is that yourself in the one pic? I re-installed the tomato stakes in my HH that go between the purlins and the edge of the raised bed. That sturdied it right up, but i was surprised how little snow it took to push it down.
No, those were just some pics I had on the puter. Forget where they came from. Wasn't me.
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
http://www.treedome.com/bilder.htm
View ImageView Image
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
View Image
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
Saw this one in Pensacola last week:
View Image
View Image
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
I dunno, Rez...i think the bears can still reach.
12-year-old Max Wallack stole the show at Design Squad’s Trash to Treasure contest with his “Home Dome.” The contest asked kids to repurpose trash into practical inventions.
http://greenbuildingelements.com/2009/02/26/12-year-old-makes-homeless-shelter-from-trash/
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
A teacher friend of mine was teaching a class on the Depression and assiged her kids a similar task of making shelters out of what they found dumpster diving, to give them a slight feel for what those times were like. Maybe if she'd offered a prize they wouldn't have all been refrigerator boxes, lol...I love those yurts in the link on that page. Since i've been going to Florida in the winter, i've had this dream of making a concrete bunker affair, which would contain utilities, around which a person could construct her seasonal yurt. When she leaves, she take it down and put it in the concrete bastion away from thieves and Mother Nature, then come back after hurricane season to set it up again and stick a futon and microwave in there. The photos at that link just gave me a new idea, though, of building the yurt on TOP of the concrete storage bunker. Hmmm...fun to dream while it's snowing out there...
Sounds like a symptom of the modernday move toward increased mobility.
Some folks take it to an extreme like a link posted earlier somewhere in this thread, alas lost to me, where some folk, I think in Amsterdam maybe, were selling a form of portable housing similar to a 4ft high crylinder deal one could turn on side and roll to wherever or place on the back of a truck for transport.
Perhaps 6ft dia which supplies weather proof sleeping arrangement.
Man, that's what I call mobility.
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
Ian told stories about the Filipino workers in Saudi being 'housed' in those huge concrete culvert sections.
Coming soon from an acquaintance in Texas to the doorway of your monitor...
"On Sunday George is showing up with his bobcat and 24' airform, and starting Monday we plan to dig a 15' deep hole, blow a concrete/papercrete dome on the bottom of the hole, and put the dirt back on after a few days. There will be a ramp down to a door on the north side and a 2' diameter tube from the peak to ground level for ventilation and light. It should settle at 68 degrees, my annual average temperature. I'll run a few earth tubes for the air intake so I stay at ambient more or less. Later I'll pick up some fiber optics on ebay cheap and place them from work areas to above ground with solar concentrators for task lighting."
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
Shipping containers back in the news.
250 to 300 will be installed in Ghent for use of university students.
Link is in Dutch but has video of the finished product.
http://www.standaard.be/video/videoPlayer.aspx?cat=2&subcat=27&videoId=97239
Edited 2/28/2009 12:26 pm ET by rez
Glassfiber Dome on Snowscooter
View Image
View ImageView ImageView ImageView Image
http://www.dftw.org/articles/ecoshellhowto/index.html
EcoShell Construction
View ImageConstruction of an EcoShell I begins with a small group of workers pouring a circular floor, to which the Airform is attached 2 inches in from the edge. The Airform is inflated with a small, high-pressure fan, such as fans used for heavy duty vacuum cleaners. After the Airform is inflated, rebar and then concrete are applied over its exterior.
The concrete can be mixed in a bucket or a fabric mixer and hand applied, or it can be mixed with commercial mixers and sprayed in place with Shotcrete equipment. This latter method obviously takes less manpower and at times produces better results. But the former method is also satisfactory and can be completed by inexperienced laborers.
Once the concrete sets, the Airform is removed.
From 44541.602...
Sunday arrived.
View Image
View Image
Oh Man!...
http://www.readersheds.co.uk/index.cfm
By Libby TuckerA company in Juneau, Alaska is hoping to break into the temporary-housing market with their Buckminster Fulleresque domes. This week, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago unveiled its new exhibition on R. Buckminster Fuller, the late, mid-20th Century designer and inventor who recognized society's need to conserve resources and coined the phrase "do more with less." His energy-efficient and sturdy geodesic dome has persisted as a model of sustainable design that's now being applied in new ways.One startup company — Juneau, Alaska-based Intershelter – is updating the Buckminster dome for use as temporary, off-grid shelters for disaster relief. The units incorporate fiberglass panels, two windows and a door that can fit into the back of a pickup truck and bolt together — or come apart — within hours."Pretty much anywhere you can get a pickup in, you can put up a house," said Shawn Mattoon, the vice president of operations and co-owner of Intershelter. "And it's easier than putting up a canvas hunting-camp tent." The domes can be reused for up to 50 years and can withstand up to 40 feet of snow and 160-mile-per hour winds — features derived form the inventor's original concept. But Intershelter' s domes also include a SolCoolhybrid air-conditioning unit powered by solar panels or a vertical wind turbine. The units also incorporate LED lighting and pull moisture from the air to provide fresh drinking water (as much as 3 Liters a day when it was tested in the Saudi Desert.)Intershelter hopes to provide a sustainable alternative to "brick and mortar" shelters, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers used to house displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina. Those buildings, which wear out quickly during frequent use and are difficult to move, may also be a health hazard for their occupants.
http://neem.ku.dk/
http://neem.ku.dk/field_diaries/
The layout of an ice core drilling camp
View ImageAt the start of the 2008 field season, the NEEM camp consists of a single heavy-duty tent, some vehicles, and a skiway. By the end of the season, there will be numerous buildings together with trenches under the snow surface for ice core drilling and analysis. Take a look at the camp layout here.
View Image
Edited 3/22/2009 11:11 am ET by rez
I just spent some time looking at those. It costs about $12K for a 20' dome compared to $5000 for a similar-sized yurt. Surprisingly, they both weigh about the same, 1100-1200 pounds.
Just build yer own permanentlike out of 2x's and osb for around 2grand.Oh Bohemian, Live Forever!be a groupie groupie
I've been noodling the idea of a piece of Florida i could escape to for a few months of the year. The idea of a foldable yurt or nesting shells like that Alaskan dome obviates the need to make a place bomb-proof for hurricane season. With a yurt, you'd also have to be able to keep it from molding in storage, or haul it away in the off season. The nesting shells wouldn't have that trouble. I love the red one! I'm not sure how a 2x4 and OSB one would hold up to wet, humid weather, and i sure wouldn't want to take it down once it was erected.
The power of the Yurt:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coloradoyurt/sets/72157616691633118/show/
Very practical, yet i like the touches of whimsy like the hearth and the colored towels for hiding storage. It looks like they have one of Riversong's composting toilets in there...i need to investigate that some more.
colorfull individual...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
"Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints"
View ImageView Image
View Image
Did those come from a link? I tried googling them without success for the story...s'il vous plaît...
"The drama of birth,
and old MotherEarth,
with all of her secrets to see..."
be #5 Modular and Panel Homes
Did you find it?
Nope.
Convert a Used Grain Bin to a New House
4/13/2009 1:29:45 PM
By Troy Griepentrog
Tags: house, recycled metal
Anywhere farmers are growing corn, soybeans or wheat, you’re likely to see empty, used steel grain bins. Those grain bins are durable, and steel is recyclable when the building has served its purpose. Why not convert a used grain bin or two into a usable building — maybe even a house or getaway? Check out the photos below of nifty grain bin conversions.
You can probably pick up a small used bin for a few hundred dollars (or even free). Used bins are frequently available on craigslist or ebay. You could also put an ad in a local newspaper or on your local farm co-op bulletin board. There are companies that can move the bins to new sites — ask around at farm stores to find them.
Prices of new steel grain bins depend on the diameter, height and region of the country, but costs start at about $7,000 for an 18-foot-diameter bin, not including the cement foundation slab or assembly.
Basic carpentry and mechanical skills are required to convert a grain bin to another use. The number of doors and windows will be limited, as too many can weaken the structure. So plan ahead and check with an engineer if you have any doubts.
Readers, we’d like to see more reports and photos of grain bins that have been converted for other uses. Please post them on our free photo-sharing website. Look for the Creative Uses of Grain Bins gallery. Or send them to me at [email protected].
Edited 5/3/2009 11:04 am ET by rez
Energy efficientEco-pod home
An 'eco-pod' home, which promises to be more energy efficient than standard houses, has been shown at this year's Grand Designs show at London's ExCel Centre. Nick Higham reports.
http://www.ecohab.co.uk/
I was curious about the price list, but i couldn't get it to open. Copper cladding on an eco-friendly building seems like they aren't aiming at the the "affordable housing" market.
Eco Pod 4, Shell Unit £18,500
Includes:
External cedar shingles,
GRP translucent dome,
Under floor heating (pipe work only),
Electrical circuit fuse board,
4 twin sockets (2/floor),
6 spot lights 3/floor
GRP front door and frame
4 windows (openable) (2/floor)
Standard or paddle staircase with handrail
Concrete (tile patterned) floor (choice of colours)
500mm high plinth and steps (single storey)
Eco Pod 4m Top section - Shell only: (Single level) £8,900
Inc 250mm plinth. This also includes electrics, 2 windows,
and a translucent grp dome.
Optional Extras
1. Cladding: Rubber slates, (recycled material):---------------------------------------------£840
zinc/copper/aluminium/GRP tiles/ glass fibre reinforced concrete:----------------------POA
2. Solid Hardwood/Pine door:---------------------------------------------------------------------£480
Curved staircase paddle or straight thread:---------------------------------------------------£300
3. Hot air recovery ventilation:--------------------------------------------------------------------£285
4. Flat solar panel and cylinder:------------------------------------------------------------------£680
5. Wood burning stove - stainless steel flue/back boiler and cylinder:---------------£1,940
6. Condensing boiler, copper cylinder, Under-floor heating:-----------------------------£965
7.Glazed floor 1m dia (25mm acrylic panel plus 6mm toughened glass):-------------£320
8. 1m high plinth (to accommodate more services):-----------------------------------------POA
9. External timber terrace including steps:-----------------------------------------------------POA
10.Triple glazed polycarbonate dome UV value 1.8----------------------------------------£320
11.Choice of flooring (hard wood, tiles, etc:---------------------------------------------------POA
12.Electric heater (choice of):-------------------------------------------------------------------- POA
13.Gas heater (choice of):-------------------------------------------------------------------------POA
Eco Pod 4m Turnkey £36,800
In addition to above includes:
3 twin power points/level 5 windows (in total).
Fully fitted bespoke kitchen including:
• concrete worktop • Stainless steel sink • Worktop waste
recycling facility (4 shoots) • Washer/dryer • Fridge freezer
• 4 gas hob • Microwave/oven • Cabinets/drawers
• Spice and knife racks • Twin gas (propane) hob
• Paper towel rack • Twin speed hot air recovery ventilation
• Window blinds (Venetian) Shelving • 1st floor wooden
window shutters. Sofa, cushions (choice of upholstery)
table and two chairs. GRP Bathroom cubicle with shower.
Pods can be customised with any choice of wall colour,
different spec furniture, curved staircase straight or paddle
thread. Bespoke work desk with 3 drawers Wardrobe.
Sofa/bed (4’ wide) set of drawers (6). NB add heating system
of choice from optional extras. Pods can be customised with
any choice of wall colour, different spec furniture, curved
staircase (straight or paddle thread) choice of floor colours, etc.
Optional extras:
Satellite dish,1m² roof mounted solar panels.Free standing solar panel/s
Free standing wind turbine. Rain water harvesting and filtration system.
Sound surround system with radio and CD player, 14” flat screen
TV and external aerial.
4m dia Turnkey Off Grid Pod
This is complete with 2 solar panels, 1 or 2 kw free standing wind turbine,
300 lit water cylinder and 1000 wt thermal store.
Purchasing an Eco Pod/ Planning Permission
We advise our customers to discuss any structural installation with their local
planning authority officer where advice can be given as to whether, or not, an
application is necessary. If permission is required then you should look for an
agreement in principle, where any issues the planning authority may have can
be discussed. Our website provides sufficient information for this initial enquiry.
Eco Hab can provide this service by making contact with the local planning officer
and providing the necessary information required. We can discuss the details,
address any concerns, and make the application on the customer’s behalf.
We do not charge for a pre-planning application or making a full application
(less costs and fees which we will have quoted for) if the purchase goes ahead.
A 5% (refundable less application costs) booking deposit is required before we
carry out this work. We advise our clients to make the initial inquiries themselves
as this will save time and money. When proceeding with the purchase of an
Eco Pod it is necessary to discuss and finalise your particular requirements before
we present the final quotation and delivery time. A 25% payment is required before
the commencement of the build.
N.B.Please note that some changes can be made during the building, however, if
these changes incur production hold ups, or additional costs, these will be passed
on to the customer. To avoid any possible misunderstandings it is necessary that
requests for changes be presented, in writing, and all possible extra costs are
agreed. A 40% payment is required after the main shell structure is built and
insulated. A 30% payment is required on delivery and final completion. A visit is
required by the customer to carry out a pre-delivery inspection. The customer can
visit, by appointment, any time during the build.
Insurance
The Pod will be covered by our insurance during its construction
until it is delivered on site. Eco Hab accepts full liability until
a safe delivery to the site.
Guarantee:
The main structure and cladding is guaranteed for 20 years
(expected lifetime is in excess of 75 years). Appliances carry
standard manufacturers guarantee.
Building Control/Planning
Each pod is certified by an independent control officer (required by planning
regulations) and is complete with an air tightness certificate and an energy rating.
6m diameter “shell only” £54,000
External cladding cedar shingles
4 windows/level
8 o/h 300mm dia windows
Electrical circuit, 4 twin sockets per level & lights,
Curved staircase with stainless steel handrail,
Under floor heating (pipes only)
Tile patterned concrete floor (charcoal)
750mm high plinth
Hot air recovery ventilation
GRP door and frame
6m Diameter Single level Shell Only £23.600
Optional extras:
Solar panels (vacuum tube)
PV panels. Additional windows, overhead or side panel
Extra sockets and lights. Boiler/wood burning stove
Various floor coverings. Solid pine/hardwood bespoke front door
Rubber slates 4m pod additional £ Rubber slates 6m pod additional £
This price is for slate grey/black, other colours are available at additional cost.
Also available:
Zinc, aluminium, copper, GRC tiles POA
Thermal (water) storage tank 250 to 1000 litres (linked to under floor tank) POA
The Pod can be customised to suit many applications
6m Diameter Turnkey £76,600
All of the above plus:
Fully fitted kitchen including:
• 4 ring gas hob • Concrete work top • Washer/dryer
• Microwave • Fridge • Fan oven • Cabinets and drawers
• Window blinds • Shelving • Wood burning stove
Fully fitted bathroom with shower and bath
Solar panels/water cylinder (200 litres)
Insurance
The Pod will be covered by our insurance during its construction
until it is delivered on site. Eco Hab accepts full liability until
a safe delivery to the site.
Guarantee:
The main structure and cladding is guaranteed for 20 years
(expected lifetime is in excess of 75 years). Appliances carry
standard manufacturers guarantee.
Optional Extras
1. Cladding: Rubber slates, (recycled material):---------------------------------------------£840
zinc/copper/aluminium/GRP tiles/ glass fibre reinforced concrete:----------------------POA
2. Solid Hardwood/Pine door:---------------------------------------------------------------------£480
Curved staircase paddle or straight thread:---------------------------------------------------£300
3. Hot air recovery ventilation:--------------------------------------------------------------------£285
4. Flat solar panel and cylinder:------------------------------------------------------------------£680
5. Wood burning stove - stainless steel flue/back boiler and cylinder:---------------£1,940
6. Condensing boiler, copper cylinder, Under-floor heating:-----------------------------£965
7.Glazed floor 1m dia (25mm acrylic panel plus 6mm toughened glass):-------------£320
8. 1m high plinth (to accommodate more services):-----------------------------------------POA
9. External timber terrace including steps:-----------------------------------------------------POA
10.Triple glazed polycarbonate dome UV value 1.8----------------------------------------£320
11.Choice of flooring (hard wood, tiles, etc:---------------------------------------------------POA
12.Electric heater (choice of):-------------------------------------------------------------------- POA
13.Gas heater (choice of):-------------------------------------------------------------------------POA
Optional extras:
Satellite dish,1m² roof mounted solar panels.Free standing solar panel/s
Free standing wind turbine. Rain water harvesting and filtration system.
Sound surround system with radio and CD player, 14” flat screen
TV and external aerial.
4m dia Turnkey Off Grid Pod
This is complete with 2 solar panels, 1 or 2 kw free standing wind turbine,
300 lit water cylinder and 1000 wt thermal store.
Purchasing an Eco Pod/ Planning Permission
We advise our customers to discuss any structural installation with their local
planning authority officer where advice can be given as to whether, or not, an
application is necessary. If permission is required then you should look for an
agreement in principle, where any issues the planning authority may have can
be discussed. Our website provides sufficient information for this initial enquiry.
Eco Hab can provide this service by making contact with the local planning officer
and providing the necessary information required. We can discuss the details,
address any concerns, and make the application on the customer’s behalf.
We do not charge for a pre-planning application or making a full application
(less costs and fees which we will have quoted for) if the purchase goes ahead.
A 5% (refundable less application costs) booking deposit is required before we
carry out this work. We advise our clients to make the initial inquiries themselves
as this will save time and money. When proceeding with the purchase of an
Eco Pod it is necessary to discuss and finalise your particular requirements before
we present the final quotation and delivery time. A 25% payment is required before
the commencement of the build.
N.B.Please note that some changes can be made during the building, however, if
these changes incur production hold ups, or additional costs, these will be passed
on to the customer. To avoid any possible misunderstandings it is necessary that
requests for changes be presented, in writing, and all possible extra costs are
agreed. A 40% payment is required after the main shell structure is built and
insulated. A 30% payment is required on delivery and final completion. A visit is
required by the customer to carry out a pre-delivery inspection. The customer can
visit, by appointment, any time during the build.
Building Control/Planning
Each pod is certified by an independent control officer (required by planning
regulations) and is complete with an air tightness certificate and an energy rating
Optional extras:
Solar panels (vacuum tube)
PV panels. Additional windows, overhead or side panel
Extra sockets and lights. Boiler/wood burning stove
Various floor coverings. Solid pine/hardwood bespoke front door
Rubber slates 4m pod additional £ Rubber slates 6m pod additional £
This price is for slate grey/black, other colours are available at additional cost.
Also available:
Zinc, aluminium, copper, GRC tiles POA
Thermal (water) storage tank 250 to 1000 litres (linked to under floor tank) POA
The Pod can be customised to suit many applications
Thanks. I wonder now why it wouldn't open for me. I could see blocks of shading, is all. I'll blame it on that damn Jobs...While reading that, i was thinking...why not just buy a camper trailer? And you could pull it! There's an Airstream for sale i passed on the highway at a lot. I just have to go back there and check it out further. That's such an iconic shape...and i have all these lamps to match it!
You mean one of the old rounded aluminum jobs that shine up like chrome?
Edited 5/3/2009 10:13 pm ET by rez
Yup. Looks to be about 20' long. I'll take pics if i get back there before it sells.
Speaking of mobile homes:http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/04/08/the-expandable-mobile-mini-house/
I like the one comment from a reader: 'it needs fold out solar panels'.
Bunch of thinkers running around out there.
Serbian Eco House
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_life/2009-05-07/316892719661.html
High electricity bills prompted engineer and inventor, Milenko Milenkovic to build his first eco-friendly house in the Serbian town of Boljevci.He says the dome-shaped house, 18.5 meters in diameter is up to 80 percent more energy efficient than a conventional house of the same size.The house’s glass-covered dome was built from 110 square meters of solar panels and a special type of concrete.One third of the house is covered with earth and there are two layers of walls, allowing the air between to circulate and serve as insulation from heat and cold.The house is so well insulated that it maintains temperatures of 22 degrees Celsius in winter and 18 degrees Celsius in summer.
View Image
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/10/16/bubbletecture-h-by-shuhei-endo/
The Return of Cloudhidden
Their shape and seamless construction make domes ideally suited to resist high winds, such as in tornadoes, a Licking County official says. The county plans to build at least two with a $750,000 FEMA grant. NEWARK, Ohio -- Residents of two Licking County mobile-home parks will soon have a safe, if oddly shaped, place to stay in severe weather thanks to help from the federal government. The county recently learned it can get up to $750,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for the construction of monolithic domes -- essentially steel-reinforced concrete igloos -- to serve as tornado shelters for county mobile-home parks. The structures are a more common sight along the Gulf Coast. Their shape and seamless construction make them ideally suited to resist high winds. "There's no flat wall for straight-line winds, or the circular winds of a tornado, to push against," said Jim Mickey, the county's environmental planner.The construction process starts with inflating a large balloonlike form that serves as a layer of weather-proofing after construction. A steel skeleton is then built inside the balloon and filled with insulation and a 4- to 8-inch layer of sprayed concrete. The outer layer is finished with stucco.
More
Edited 5/15/2009 11:11 pm ET by rez
$750K to build two tornado shelters for 315 people. Wow.
ya, that's what I thought.
Federal money.
I thought getting a grant for $500 for the community gardens put me in high clover. Sheesh...
A thinker's game:
http://www.equilatere.net/frame.php?lang=en&page=en/fondamentals/home.php&PHPSESSID=46fbb3abd794289556af67804f255846
The lowly square shed from an interesting website.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Building-a-Shed/
View Image
Edited 5/24/2009 10:30 am ET by rez
Instructables strikes again!
http://www.instructables.com/id/Dome_Tipi/
Edited 5/25/2009 10:10 am ET by rez
Link no worky?
http://www.instructables.com/id/Dome_Tipi/
Sorry about that.
Thought it unique in that it is a dome type structure consisting of equal length chords which could really scale down production in simplicity, thinking of triangular panels.
Kinda ugly looking critter tho'.
View Image
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009282096_quilcene31m.html
"And then, when we got there, I didn't know exactly what it was."
QUILCENE, Jefferson County — John Austin has found an old, abandoned naval oddity in the Quilcene-area woods.
By foot, his discovery is well off the beaten path. Austin, a Jefferson County commissioner, said it is a wild trek across private property lines, abandoned roads and long forgotten trails...
...This discovery, this forgotten structure Austin found in the woods, is difficult to describe.
When approaching the site by boat — as Austin did on a recent day — the object looks like an old, super-sized phone booth with a set of rickety wood stairs leading up to it.
Above that, hidden in the woods, is a large dome structure with a small hatch on the side.View Image
'Houston, we have a problem.'
Explore The Houston Dome
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/mega-engineering/explore/houston-dome.html
View Image
http://www.witentes.com/html/witente.html
View Image
http://www.readersheds.co.uk/share.cfm?SHARESHED=1435
Just for you domeheads...
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~jw.rich/faqs.htm
Intershelter' s domes are being proposed for disaster relief, military use, quarantine shelters and moreBy Katie Spielberger | CCW Editor JUNEAU - Captain Don Kubley describes himself as "just a fourth generation kid from Ketchikan," but he has a business on his hands that could change the way the world responds to natural disasters. Kubley is the president and CEO of a company called Intershelter, which manufactures dome-shaped portable shelters. If all goes according to plan, the company's slogan, "We shelter the world," might not be too far off from becoming a reality. The idea of using domes for housing has been around for quite some time. In the late 1940s the futurist and designer Buckminster Fuller invented the geodesic dome. A student of Fuller's named Craig Chamberlain created a small, economical dome called the OmniSphere. A personal connection brought Chamberlain, the man with the design, together with Kubley - the man who would market the dome to the world. A refined version of Chamberlain' s original design is now being produced and sold by Intershelter. Built to withstand extreme environmental conditions, including Class 4 hurricanes and 8.5 earthquakes, the domes are being marketed as the solution to a range of emergency housing needs - from disaster relief to quarantine shelters to refugee camps. Domes, Kubley said, bridge the gap between permanent housing and the typical portable shelters of tents and trailers. Made out of fiberglass with a gel coat, the domes are assembled from 21 round pieces, each piece weighing less than 55 pounds. The pieces can be stacked "like Pringles potato chips," Kubley said, and will fit in the back of a pickup truck. A 14-foot SurvivalDome can be assembled by two inexperienced people in less than two hours, using just a ladder, a screwdriver and small socket wrench. Just as easily, the domes can be disassembled and then reused elsewhere. The domes are known to last at least 15-20 years, and Kubley thinks they are likely to last much longer than that. "It's the only structure in the world that has no frame and has structural integrity," Kubley said. Instead of relying on tents and trailers to house thousands of people following natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, agencies like FEMA could strategically place domes in disaster-prone areas of the country, Kubley said. After disaster strikes, the domes can be easily constructed by families themselves close to what remains of their property. "A family can put up their own shelter and stay together as a unit - which helps the healing process - and protect their belongings from looting," Kubley said. "They can live comfortably, safely, and in our (solar powered) SolarDomes be totally off the grid." Kubley, with the support of a number of high-ranking military officials and disaster relief experts, recently submitted a proposal to FEMA recommending the use of the domes for disaster relief. Lt. Gen. Craig Campbell of the Alaska National Guard wrote Kubley a letter in support of the mission, writing: "These shelters are optimal for use as temporary shelters in times of disaster emergencies and these domes would be exceptional for use in Alaska. They far exceed the capabilities of the existing canvas tents." When he first introduced the domes to people outside of Alaska, Kubley said many of them responded with comments along the lines of, "Oh, it's an igloo!" At first he corrected people, but after hearing it enough times, he decided to embrace the igloo image. "Heck, we're an Alaskan company, why not?" he said. Call it a dome, an igloo or a shelter - the structures can already be found in 54 countries around the world, and counting. Kubley said he has dealers in 15 countries and receives 100-200 requests for information daily from around the globe. "Mark my words, a year from today, when you turn on CNN, you'll see these," Kubley said. "Every organized army in the world will be using these. "We are going to make a huge, positive difference on this planet." ****** Juneau residents might be surprised to learn there are already domes in their midst. Next to the AT&T tower on Lena Loop Road sits a green domed shelter. At just 14 feet across, the dome appears pretty unassuming, but the telecommunications company has big plans for the little structures, said Brian Buck of AT&T. AT&T Alascom has ordered half a dozen of the domes to be placed at remote towers on mountain tops, Buck said. They will be used to house equipment and will be stocked with food and water to be used as survival sheds if necessary. Buck himself was once stuck at one of AT&T's remote sites for three days with only a helicopter for shelter and melted snow for water. "If we'd had one of these (domes) we would have been comfortable and safe," he said. "It's all about safety and convenience. " Several thousand miles south of Juneau, domes were used for 12 years for a medium-term housing community for the homeless called Justiceville. The success of the structures in the "dome village" attracted the attention of Ellis M. Stanley, Sr., General Manager for Emergency Preparedness for the City of Los Angeles. On the Intershelter brochure, Kubley has reprinted a letter Stanley: "As a 32-year career emergency manager we see few opportunities to really make giant leaps in the way we do things in disaster preparedness. I believe Intershelter is one of those opportunities when we can do some things differently. " The structures meet the residential building codes for Los Angeles and are the only temporary structures that have been approved for migrant worker housing, Kubley said. And since the domes can be sealed to product against biohazards, they would also make ideal shelters for quarantines and sheltering the humanitarian aid workers dealing with outbreaks of serious diseases or terrorist attacks. "The markets are pretty staggering to say the least," Kubley said. Right now, Intershelters' s focus is on large-scale projects, but Kubley thinks the domes will be popular for individual consumers as well. "These are perfect for construction camps, for hunting and fishing lodges," he said. The 14-foot diameter dome, which provides 160 square feet of living space, retails for about $7,000, and the 20-foot diameter dome (320 square feet) for $12,500. ****** Intershelter is currently run by just Kubley, his wife Tracy, and his vice president Shawn Mattoon, but they have a large team of contractors and supporters. "I've got a team around me, a big global team," Kubley said. He anticipates the demand for Intershelters will soon rise considerably. There are currently 400-500 in existence around the world, but Intershelter is poised to build 15,000-20,000 units in the next year, then double the following year - and then skyrocket, Kubley said. "We are about to go through a big, big growth spurt," he said. "We'll be staffing up big time." This is the perfect time for Intershelter to hit the U.S. and global market, he said. At a time when the country is looking for new industries - green industries, especially - Intershelter is it. "It's a green technology and it does some great things for the country and the world," Kubley said. As he awaits the growth spurt, for the moment Kubley still has time to sit in one of his domes and admire the design. "It's a work of art," Kubley said, gazing up at the top of a dome. "Art that can help people." Learn more about Intershelter at http://www.intershelter. com. View additional photos at http://www.capitalcityweek ly.com. Katie Spielberger may be reached at katie.spielberger@ capweek.com. http://www.capitalc ityweekly. com/stories/ 070109/new_ 457424071. shtml
You Texas fellas have all the fun...
View Image
View Image
In my city!! From expo '67
I remember going in that at age 12.
Had space capsules hanging and a collection of hats. Made me wonder why the hats.
Got to ride the escalators.
12 years later brother builds a dome home.
be a country boy in the big city
It's still here.
See it just about every week as we go over the Champlain bridge.
It's now called the Bio Sphere.
If you dare...
http://www.yellowtreehouse.co.nz/
Erica BryantStaff writer Call it an "eco-dome," "moon cocoon," or "modern mud hut," an earthen structure of minimally processed local materials will soon be rising in Rochester.The City Planning Commission approved North East Area Development Inc.'s application on Monday to construct a 30-foot diameter dome that will be made primarily of bagged dirt. The eco-dome is expected to be the first of its kind in the city.NEAD plans to use a building technique designed by Iranian-born architect Nader Khalili. In the 1980s he presented it to NASA as a way to build lunar dirt structures. In the years before his death in 2008, Khalili promoted the process as a way to build affordable structures that aren't harmful to the environment.His wife, Iliona Khalili, was on site at NEAD's Freedom School on Tuesday, teaching youth how to fill grain bags with dirt to create circular rows of giant soft bricks that would be held together with barbed wire. The students worked on a practice dome this week on the front lawn of their Goodman Street school.As they worked, Khalili talked about humanity's long history of building with earth and the value of rediscovering building materials that don't have to be transported hundreds of miles and heavily processed."If people only knew what treasure lies under their feet," said Khalili, a sustainable architecture instructor for the Albany-based Center for Sustainable Living. "Everything we need is right here."She estimates that builders have used her husband's "earth bag" technique to construct more than 50 domes in the United States and about 3,000 worldwide.NEAD's plans for Melville Street include a central dome structure about 30 feet in diameter with some smaller dome offshoots. It will include a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.The organization will be aided by representatives from the Center for Sustainable Living and the California-based Peace Center for Youth and Family Advancement in its goal of maximum energy efficiency for the dome. Metin Vargonen, who works with sustainable energy for the Center for Sustainable Living, will help orient the eco-dome and its windows so the structure gets the maximum solar energy in the building during the winter and loses the least possible amount of heat.Marsha Allen, of the Peace Center for Youth and Family Advancement, hopes these buildings become common around the city. Her organization trains Americans how to build eco-dome structures with the goal of sending them to Africa to share the knowledge with street children and other people in need of affordable shelter. "As these projects unfold, (Rochester) will be a strategic center for earthen architecture and the difference it can make for people who don't have a lot of money," she said.The Baobab Cultural Center is also planning to build an eco-dome and will host a walk-a-thon on Sunday at Ellison Park to advance the project. Founder Moka Lantum said that he is looking for a plot of city land to accommodate a 1,200-square- foot dome cluster that will house a reception area, bathroom, workshop space, art gallery and gathering space for films and community dialogues.Construction of the Melville Street eco-dome is expected to begin by the end of July. Freedom School director George Moses said he hopes this project is the first of many because such efforts fit the school's mission of fostering civic engagement. "Don't complain about there being high energy bills. Don't complain about there being a lack of affordable sustainable quality housing," he said Tuesday, a shovel in his hand and his red T-shirt dusted with dirt. "Do something about it."
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20090711/NEWS01/907110329/1002/NEWS/Dirt+eco-dome+to+rise+in+Rochester
View Image
The AmeriCorps Hoopa Tribal Civilian Community Corps traveled for four days and spent two weeks helping a Sioux family get a new home in South Dakota. The eight-person team helped the Nature's Compassion group from July 13 to 26 to build an Eco-Dome, or earthen home, on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation using sand bags, barbed wire and the area's earth, said Viola Long, project manager for TCCC. This was the first Eco-Dome the TCCC had helped build and was a test for future projects. "They're going to try this out, and if the idea works, they'll try and build more homes in that area," Long said. TCCC spent two weeks helping Nature's Compassion build the Eco-Dome before having to return to Hoopa for other planned projects, Long said. Nature's Compassion plans to finish the structure before winter begins and present it to a Sioux family that needs a new home, Long said. The future owners of the Eco-Dome are excited and have been helping during the construction, she said. According to Nature's Compassion Web site, 60 percent of the homes on the Pine Ridge reservation need to be destroyed because of black mold infestation. The Eco-Domes resemble mounds and are considered sustainable because they need no heating or air conditioning, Long said. The materials keep the structure cool in the summer and warm in the winter. "You don't have to have any insulation," she said. Eco-Domes are built from the inside out, using compressed bags of dirt from the area held together with barbed wire for the inside of the walls. Lime is also used in the walls and prevents mold from growing, Long said. Within the rooms of the Eco-Dome, the family will have all the same amenities a normal home would have, including running water and electricity, Long said. Cesar Flores led a team of seven people to South Dakota: Evette Bley of the Karuk Tribe, Layton Jones of the Yurok tribe, Charlotte Plenty Chief of the Sioux Tribe, Shlene Able of Paiute Tribe, Deborah Davis of Hoopa Valley Tribe, Kimberly Frost of the Navajo Tribe and Pada Pahavong from Santa Rosa. TCCC members are between the ages of 18 and 26 and are currently working on projects in Hoopa and other California areas. http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_12960818?nclick_check=1
Edited 8/2/2009 12:16 am ET by rez
Eight people for two weeks ? My back hurts just thinking about it.
Them women can be tough and durable when they want to be. snorK*
View ImageIn Colorado it’s cold for much of the year, but inside this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager and permaculturist Breigh Peterson: the greenhouse structure with its interplay of light and water, warmth and air; curving raised beds of vegetables and flowers; fish tanks moderating the temperature; vertical trellises and shelves to use vertical space. Outdoors a huge garden of row crops and a young orchard are complemented by free-roaming chickens and ducks.
28minute video
http://www.energybulletin.net/media/geodesic-greenhouse
Edited 8/5/2009 3:45 pm ET by rez
experimental mobile home.
final piece arrives at midnight.
no equipment operators still around
"I ran a machine sorta like that one.....once......a long time ago"
turn key, move slow, figure it out as I go
"ah, there it is.....better'n perfect"
View Image
Thanks, i'm letting it play through in fits and starts, then i'll replay it. It's a "Growing Spaces" dome like the one that was pictured in last year's Hoophouse thread, but substantially larger.Lotsa storms lately, so my wireless Internet connection is iffy. Got knocked off line for several hours last night.I broke ground on my new shop last week...ah, feels good...
Interesting concrete link:
Is an alternative building system that utilizes prefabricated structural polystyrene panels with a wire mesh called Tridipanels. The panels become a structural wall, ceiling or feature when a cementious material is shotcreted onto the panels.
Tridipanels are an environmentally friendly "green" product that are made from recycled materials. Tridipanels are resistant to extreme temperatures, wind and earthquakes.
The panels architectual flexibility allows for features that are difficult and in some cases not possible with conventional construction.are resistant to extreme temperatures, wind and earthquakes.
The panels architectual flexibility allows for features that are difficult and in some cases not possible with conventional construction.
http://www.wildcreteinternational.com/index.html
How can any structure in South Dakota not require heat in winter? I live in northeast Nebraska and I can't believe it could be done here. Winter of '83-'84 temp didn't get above zero for about a month. Earth walls 3' thick would still freeze through before the end of winter. Or are they so small it can be heated with body heat?
You just wanted to use the 666 post.
Actually, seeing the small size of the structures and the fact there is water and electric
I would think the expression ' need no heating or air conditioning' involves the very base of basic as in perhaps keeping above freezing.
That's just my surmising tho'. It seems a small space heater would take care of business pretty readily.
Edited 8/12/2009 3:08 am ET by rez
These dome homes prefabs from Dome House in Japan have cleared Japan's very strict building codes.The Dome House homes are expanded polystyrene"the fourth-generation building material"after wood, iron, and concrete.The Dome House prefab homes use many ingenious innovations for construction:Antioxidant solution is added to prevent a person living in the home from aging, and also in recovering from illnesses. The Dome House is free of formaldehyde. Ultra-thermal insulation. The building material is insulating to be sure, but even the design of a dome is more efficient to move air throughout the room, since corners, where air accumulates are eliminated. Highly stable, the Dome House home also will not deteriorate as wood or other materials may The Dome House home is very resistant to high winds because of the curvature. This dissipates wind energy. Highest earthquake resistance in the world. Since the Dome House is light in weight the home is very stable against earthquakes.http://www.examiner.com/x-8310-Trendy-Living-Examiner~y2009m8d5-Dome-House-prefab-homes-Gallery--Video
That has got to be the corniest video ever. Cool little cookie cutter houses tho.
ASM headquarters in Geauga is headed for National RegisterMonday, August 31, 2009 John HortonPlain Dealer ReporterRussell Township -- A geodesic dome landed in Geauga County five decades ago like a lost spaceship looking for directions. Its next destination? The National Register of Historic Places. A state advisory board on Friday recommended that the futuristic dome and headquarters of ASM International be nominated to join some of the nation's oldest treasures on the federal list. The panel's nod of approval, which followed a rigorous vetting process, typically translates into inclusion within a few months. The recognition reflects the architectural and engineering significance of the dome and office complex built in 1959 off Ohio 87, according to the Ohio Historical Society. The nominating form describes the open-air dome as an "engineering marvel." The structure, named "Space Lattice," rises 103 feet above the ground, stretches 274 feet across and weighs in at 80 tons. It's billed as the world's largest openwork geodesic dome. Workers welded 65,000 pieces of extruded aluminum -- or 12 miles of tubing -- in a hexagon pattern to create the giant sculpture. It's tough, too: strong enough to withstand an 8-inch coating of ice or 500-mph winds. The only reported damage to the dome followed the 1986 earthquake, which sheared off a few bolts while shaking Northeast Ohio. The dome symbolizes "what humankind can do by reaching down into the Earth and taking out its raw materials," said Stan Theobald, managing director of ASM, formerly the American Society for Metals. (The nonprofit organization is a worldwide scientific society that shares technical knowledge on metals and materials.) Renowned inventor and engineer R. Buckminster Fuller designed the dome. Others with a hand in the overall campus known as Metals Park include Cleveland architect John Terence Kelly and one of ASM's founding members, William H. Eisenmen. The dome and semicircular headquarters are separate yet seemingly intertwined, creating an "artistic connection," according to the nomination. ASM sought the historic designation to qualify for tax credits on a planned renovation of the headquarters, Theobald said. Owners who rehabilitate income-producing properties listed on the National Register can qualify for a 20 percent federal income tax credit if the work follows federal guidelines. Visitors can often be seen gazing up from under the dome while strolling through ASM's Mineral Garden. The site - on Ohio 87 just west of Ohio 306 - is open to the public. The amazed faces show the visual impact of the dome, Theobald said. "It still has that 'wow' factor," he said.
http://www.clevelan d.com/news/ plaindealer/ index.ssf? /base/geauga/ 1251707496182140 .xml&coll= 2
Inhabitat
Inhabitat
September 8, 2009
Bubbletecture Stadium Popping Up in Melbourneby Bridgette Meinhold
View Image
A bubbly new soccer and rugby stadium is popping up in Melbourne that will feature a highly engineered exterior structure combined with many sustainable features. Designed by Cox Architects, the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium is a marvel of architecture and engineering with it’s bubble-like facade inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome. Construction is fully underway, allowing a glimpse into how the cantilevered structure is being put together.
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
When completed in 2010, the stadium will seat 30,000 spectators as they watch both the Melbourne Victory Soccer Team and the Melbourne Storm Rugby Club. The stadium will also house a sports medicine facility and many administrative offices for the city’s sports organizations. The stadium’s design was inspired by the geodesic dome and it features a unique cantilever design that provides shelter for the spectators without inhibiting their view of the game below.
The structure’s roof is skinned with a triangular panelized facade that uses 50% less steel than a typical cantilevered roof structure. The envelope is currently composed of combination of glass, metal and louvres, and in the future the architects hope to integrate photovoltaic thin-film into the design. During construction scaffolding is in place to put the domes together and once completed the scaffolding can be taken off and the structure will support itself. The dome will be lit up by thousands of LED lights and also feature rainwater collection, natural lighting, and natural ventilation.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/09/08/bubbletecture-stadium-popping-up-in-melbourne/
Edited 9/20/2009 1:44 pm ET by rez
Explore the Climatron through Post-Dispatch photographer Huy Mach’s 3D panoramic photo.
In 1960, the Climatron opens to the public. It marks a clean break with the past with its futuristic design based upon the architectural concepts of Buckminster Fuller who created the concept of the geodesic dome.
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/multimedia-archive/2009/06/01/missouri-botanical-garden-panorama-of-the-climatron-2/
125070.1
Unique dome home welcomes guests as a bed-and-breakfast.
Don and Sherryl Bainbridge say their futuristic, dome-shaped home on 10 country acres has been called a golf ball, a giant pumpkin and a radar dome. They want others to know it is also warm, party-friendly, and more importantly, energy efficient and safe.
On Oct. 24 and 25, the couple is opening their home to the public to both educate the curious about the sturdiness of the monolithic dome construction they chose for their home and to see first-hand that the austere, igloo-shaped exterior gives way to a warm, inviting interior that combines Victorian charm and modern functionality.
MORE
2 1/2 minute video production by DocuCinema shows and summarizes the U-Dome assembly day by 200 volunteers at River Haven, Ventura.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_PRZOclbXc
Close ups of the U-dome.
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/2935/u-dome-world-shelters-casa-per-tutti-at-milan-triennale.html
I haven't watched the video, but.... (won't stop me from putting my $0.02 in). If they have large enough aquariums with tank heaters in them, maybe it heats the space.
jt8
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. -- Carl Sandburg
Thanks for the link. I've long been intrigued with grain bins and Quonset huts, so this will be a great bookmark to explore.
the birseye gets my vote...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
"Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints"
My local woodpecker would love that thing! Maybe he would leave my mailbox alone.
Allen,
The door seems a little small to get you bed through.
Jon
Hey, thats nice. Did you freehand it or use a plan? I've been looking for simple plans to build just what you posted there. A simple structure for my son. If you used a plan, where did you get it from? If you did it freehand, dont take the question about the plan as an insult. Just asking.
just freeehanded it, tried to make for good material usage, kids had fun helping.
Wow, very impressive. How did you make the roof. Thats the part that is stumping me from trying mine freehand. I'm a DIY'er at this.
Design it yourself. Draw it to scale on graph paper, one box = one foot. Draw all the parts to scale, studs, plates, rafters and all. Take it to the local copy shop and have them blow it up two or three times. Use the drawings to cut the rafter angles and offer them up to get the length right.
On a small shed, an easy way to 'cheat' on the complexity of a traditional rafter is to slant the top plates of the sidewalls to the slope of the roof. This allows you to lay your rafters on without making a bird's mouth cut. So you cut all the rafters a bit too long, nail them in place, snap a chalkline where you want the tails to end, and cut 'em off on the line.
Don't try this on a full size house, though.... Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Thanks man. Thats a start.
ps - no worries. I have no plans to build a full size house. Yet.
yep finishing mine right now. But what i would suggest is buying the kit from simpson ties. They sell all the stuff you need including plans, you go buy the sheathing, roofing material, floor kit ect. In their kit they have all the ties/ plans and I believe the screws ect. If I had to do it all over again thats how I would of done it.
Darkworksite4:
El americano pasado hacia fuera ase la bandera
Got home last night from a long day at the salt mine and there was my last issue of the Family Handyman magazine (July issue, I think). I am not meaning to push another magazine, just respond with an alternative. I don't think FH would do an article on sheds or spaceships. If I wrong, let me know the FH issue. I would like to see it.
Anyway, on the cover was the picture of a great backyard shed complete with a lean to sitting area. Plans and pictures of the shed being built are inside. For the professionals here, the cover is about all you would need. For the DIYer see the July issue. and for those who have to have plans (as Norm would say) a measured draawring is available for purchase.
Well, ok - even though this conversation has morphed from sheds to domes, aircraft tracking stations, and hippies with possibly altered states of mental awareness, I've always been looking for an excuse (ok, ANY excuse) to finally show the readership here that I, indeed, have only a small clue to what I'm doing.
12X8 (staying under 100 SF avoids pulling a permit in my local), deck is 2X10 with 12" OC (to support the riding mower that I don't have), 3/4 PT ply on 6 piers. Windows came from a double hung with a damaged frame, 8" cedar clapboards, two 48" doors (T1-11 glued and screwed to 2X4 frames that have stayed square for the last 4 years). All trim is 1X PT. I even cleverly placed an 8' work bench at one end that I can get to in the unlikely event I ever clean the shed out. And yes, it actually IS level, dispite what the photo may indicate.
No plans at all.
Dan
Edited 6/28/2004 2:49 pm ET by DanH1
Edited 6/28/2004 2:51 pm ET by DanH1
Pretty sweet.
From the left side of the photo it looks like you'll be over in the firewood shed thread;o)
Edited 6/28/2004 4:04 pm ET by rez
you looking through the back of yer monitor again? that fire wood is on the LEFT of my screen..
or ya got that dreaded aixelsid again?
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
bwaaaaa! I hate when that happens.
?si taht emoc woH .tfel yas ot tnaem I ,wonk aY
Edited 6/28/2004 4:07 pm ET by rez
"And yes, it actually IS level, dispite what the photo may indicate"
Me thinks you weren't level when you took the picture........ <g>
Looks great!
mmmAnything I put my mind to, I could do..... given time, money, etc....
Rez,
Hope I am not the only one working in the backyard this weekend! When I started today there was only a floor. Its nice to be able to unload all the stuff I have been pack-rat-ing for the past 3 years. So far I got about $100 into this one,
Hope to have a new home for the Dirt Bikes, come Tuesday. 14' X 10'6"
Well ya, that'll do it.
How's the song go again...
'I always get a buzz
Always get a buzz
Always get a buzz when I'm buildin', baby...'
Not speaking of any ingested stimuli you understand.
Just that good natural feeling that comes with building.
sobriety is the root cause of dementia
Edited 7/3/2004 5:22 pm ET by rez
There goes the profit sharing at work...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
That's what I was thinking, don't suppose he's taking a piece home every night do ya?
or several...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
Just like the Jonny Cash song, One Part at a Time!
You should send that to Ron T. He's been puttering around a stack of wood praying it will stand up and attach itself together for what? At least two months now.Who Dares Wins.
Here"s how we looked @ Beer-Thrity today, 2 more weekends & this one will be history! Ran short on shingles, will need some more trim boards & paint. Can't wait to get back to the real job, this working around the house is rough on a guy!
I like it. What'd you use to get the smooth walls?
I bought 24 bundles of archy shingles from the HomeTeapot 'cause Lowes were out of the light grey I wanted.
Couple days later a newspaper blurb from beLowes says 'Buy 2 get 1 free' &$#sob#*?%
So I say wait a minute and grab the blurb and go to Depot and say hey looky here.
Those guys met it and refunded $111 off my card.
Pays to ask. I have no trouble with the big boxes. Roar!
sobriety is the root cause of dementia
Rez,
Used 4x8 sheets of 1/2" Masonite for the siding. Ordered a 5-0 x 6-8 steel door from the lumber yard. Should be ready for pick-up thurs. 3 large $ ones for the door,but I plan on keeping tools & such in side so, I did not want to make the door out of ply-wood.
How about some up-dated photos of your project?
All it is is a black felt spaceship right now with white plastic draped over where the door and window will go.
Lost momentum over the holiday after the weather pressure changed and even coffee has failed to jumpstart me. The thing has lost it's jazz since the prototype is up enough for me to know it'll work. I've been secretly trying to cut corners and devise ways to make it easier.
I'm in trouble cause it's halfway done and I don't want to mess with it anymore. Kinda like swimming more than halfway across the lake and you must go on to the other side.
Gotta do the shingles, freakin' door and window and some kinda cupola deal at the top all yet to be seen.
Where's the motorboat with the rope on an innertube?
sobriety is the root cause of dementia
Edited 7/6/2004 10:18 am ET by rez
ok, two speeds...slow and slower."sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
That's slower and stop....
so cool... widow walk and all
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
More to follow. That's the start of a cupola thing up there.
Where's a roar when you need one."sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
Are sure this is a shed or is it some kind of monument...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
damm Rez, save them shingles for sumptin else an get Cloud to shoot that baby with concrete..last a few life times thata way.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Rez,
I am liking the look, Real plywood (your DW must have a good job) we could only afford osb.You need to hang the Pine branch on it for the topping out ceremony!
Plywood? We don't need no stinkin' plywood!
Nah, that's osb. I bought it a couple years ago when it was $5 a sheet. If I had to pay $12 to $15 a sheet the thing would never have been built.
Using stuff I've stashed around over the years and what I can find readily available at decent costs. I told myself I wasn't going over a grand on this and I'm holding to it.
Biggest expense are the shingles and when I get the utility door. Funny how fast expenses can add up even when when watching like a hawk. Almost 4 bucks for a box of staples.Who'd a thought;o)
It's taking too long and paying jobs are more fun."sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
damn rez, thats realy turning into sumpin!
I like the widows walk on the top, nice touch.
Doug
Ok, I finally got back to it."sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
Your getin there Bro! That roof looks like its going to eat up some time. Went to pick-up my door for the In law apartment, ordered a 5/0 6/8 they made a 6/0. So were still door less. Hope to wrap it up short of paint & caulk this weekend. Will post a photo of the finished product once the door is in .
That's it! That's enough already!
Rainday yesterday and found myself sitting in there staring at a pentagon trying to figure out how to put in a window and overhang.
Realized that this thing keeps calling to me saying cabin cabin when I planned shed shed. What's with that anyhow.
Middle of July already and 3 jobs waiting in the wings plus my place which was a reason for this shed to give me room to move around finishing in the house in the first place.
I don't even know what's going to happen to this after a winter of freeze/thaw cycles and here I am hasseling my head trying to dream up ways to incorporate rectangular 45/90degree building techniques into this monstrosity.
So forget about windows, forget about siding on the bottom halfhexes, forget about a weathervane, forget cutesy extras. It gets a door and shingles, that's it.
Good lord man what was I thinking?
You guys did it to me."sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
Rez,
We had so much fun with the Mother in Law apartment, we have now gone professional! Here is the latest, 9' x 9' Getting paid for this gig, so we better," Get er Done"
How you making out with your project?
Oh man, gotta love those payin' gigs! :o)
Especially when you get to build on one. :o)
My project? Two speeds. ...er, three. Slow, slower, and stop.
Took some time away to make some money. Did start framing in for the door the other day tho. And set up for mass cutting of shingles. Going to sacrifice a blade on an old sears museum piece 'Motorized Miter Saw' it says on it. Do I hear a roar anywhere?
Wish I could find that old thread where someone gave a pretty detailed description on cutting down metal covered utility doors for low cellar entryways.
I've got to cut one down about 3 inches to swing into a hex panel.
Where's the time flying? Heading into the third week of August already and ain't hit the lake once yet. Cryin' in my beer.
What day is this anyhow, Saturday?sobriety is the root cause of dementia
Is that a housing developement or apartment complex in the last pic?
You build-in seating or is it stand up waiting for the school bus?
Do we get a shot of the finished project? sobriety is the root cause of dementia
Rez,
225 unit Townhome project. Doing the bus stop/gatehouse with my son to help him get extra cash. The Townhome project feeds the familiy.
No seating on the small print,but that could change. Will post the finished project,that could be in a few more weekends.
dude, them some seriously TALL vent stacks in the first one, how many crappers are there? lol
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Ya know, seeing the openness in the background scenery there makes me kinda miss the southwest. Sob.sobriety is the root cause of dementia
Rez,
Break in to some of your stock windfall gains and buy a ticket, will put you to work for a spell & will reacquaint you with the southwest. The weather is killer here for the next 60 days, then hope we get some major snow this year. Been a wetter then average summer, so hope it follows into the winter!
stock windfall gains? me? Roar! I always knew you had a sense of humor.
'specially that line about hoping for a major snow this winter. ;o)sobriety is the root cause of dementia
Well, I got to thinking about your bus building here and I have to ask you 'how come a 9'x9'?be dead on or that quarter inch is going to haunt you
All that is left over is the saw dust...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
Getting closer to the finish line...
Maybe this weekend, missing some parts & then got to break out the caulk gun & brush. Jr. is getting an education & cash @ the same time, while I get to sit in the shade & drink umbrella drinks!
On the 9x9 part, anything over 120 sq. ft. needs a permit. (=$).
Hey, came out looking pretty sweet.
but ....sit in the shade & drink umbrella drinks! Why I outta....!
By 9x9 question I meant that sheet goods being 4x8 which I now realize is a mute point in that I attempted a dome:o)
Speaking of dome, what a time involved issue this has turned out to be. Time I was intending on spending on the house.
And with this cold front and wet weather that just moved in carrying that dreaded first premonition of fall and the onslaught of winter I'm growing somber.
In the meantime during the last storm some limbs fell from the trees around the house which I fully expected to have trimmed by now. They missed the house but others are hovering in that if they went it would be trouble.
My old nearly flatroofed side porch I expected to tear out and make a kitchen area leaked.
Somehow chipmunks are into the 1 1/2 vent space upstairs in the cathedral roof. I can hear them chewing away at the foamboard insulation and I have as yet to discover how in the world they found a way in there.
Even tho' because of time I eliminated the windows and other intended features on the domeshed it is still unfinished after a full week of roofing.
And all I can come up with is I need more coffee.
Woe is me. ROAR!
Here she is sitting in the rain in all her maiden glory...bwaa!
be dead on or that quarter inch is going to haunt you
Edited 9/17/2004 3:00 pm ET by rez
rez,
Dome is looking good! What I really like about the dome is, very little surface area on the outside for painting. I still need to finish painting the Mother in law apartment in the backyard(just the body,trim is done).
Them dam chipmunks, get yourself a paintball gun & have some fun! They say that they taste just like Chicken!Iam sure somebody over at Cooks Talk should have a recipe.
Thay is some thing..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Guess I should have spent some time and put a window in there, huh?
Got to thinking about all the time spent on this and considered fixing it up as a summer week rental to help recoup.work slow, work free, live long....huh?
Don't forget the central HVAC....
Fireplace would be nice...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Here is the current status of the non paying job.Right out the back door.Little more paint & caulk & she's a finished. Maybe next year will run H20, & electric. Then I can get a maid named Consuelo!
MIL will be proud.
If that's a copper roof on that cupola then ya gotta get a weather vane. :o)work slow, work free, live long....huh?
Yea, I'am thinking one with a Pig on it!
Had a nightmare last night.
Gawd-awful man!
In it a car pulled up to my shed and a guy gets out.
He looks up at the building and then...
He has a clipboard with a tablet on it. He smiles and starts writing furiously on it.
It was Tim Mooney.
I start freakin' and wake up clawing the sheets screaming 'Help!'.
What do you think it means?
hmmm?
Couldn't get Tim to bite.
build another right next to it..call it " a boobs folly" or "boobs r us"
Sorry Rez, it ain't a shed, it ain't a spaceship, and it ain't no tipi..it's a boob, plain as day.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Sue the doc that did the implants...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
ok, boob, bread & breakfast it is then.
Sphere, you ever take one of those ink blot tests? You're startin' to sound normal. :o)"sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
I did, in the Navy.
For every pic they showed me I said pussey cats
after 12 of those the Doc said, why did ya say that for all of them?
I said I am crazy about pussey cats
now, take away the 'cats'
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
So, yer saying when I top it all off with a spinner weathervane then yer going to say it's a pastie and not a rooster? "sobriety is the root cause of dementia.", rez,2004
"Geodesics have an infinite proliferation of possible branches, at the whim of subatomic indeterminism.",Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time
better go with the propeller..then it'll be one of them old propeller head hats..less boobish..never seen a rooster on a boob..might work visually (G)..
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
better go with the propeller..then it'll be one of them old propeller head hats..less boobish..never seen a rooster on a boob..might work visually (G)..
The mind boggles.
I was thinkin' it was time for greencu to show up and turn it into a lightning magnet with a copper skin. Now, park your fanny in there and await the hit... Probably power the whole neighborhood for a week.
And you thought methane was interesting. <G>PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
This is a shed I built for a friend. He wanted something with a tin roof on his property, But did not want to put tin on his house. He deals in Architectural antiques so he had the door and window in his shop. I did have to make the jamb for the door and the casing for the window. The floor joists and sheathing are treated (we have a lot of termites here in SC). The inside is finished with paneling and pegboard. It is even wired. After building it he claims it is too nice to use for a potting shed.
Kip
That is a pretty sweet little building. Bet he's got some architectural antiques stored in there now.
.Act as a child and get away with it. Everyone else wants to anyway
I like the way you finished up the outside...but ya know, it doesn't fit anything in the thread title<G> Do you need a titular reprimand?
& Geo with the numbers what is that cool little shed with the hip roof? Very nice. Don't worry, we can fix that later!
We call it the," Bust stop! "
Well, keep me abreast<G> Don't worry, we can fix that later!
Funny thing is, He has not put a thing in it yet. And I built it 2 years ago.
Kip
Roar! It's funny how that goes.
I use to run rustfree cars and trucks from the south to here in the rust belt.
Guys would show up buying the 60s car yada yadaing about how they were going to restore it- sandblast, paint frame, rebuild etc.
Years later I'm somewhere and see those old cars putting by exactly the same way I sold them. Nothing changed.
Dreams and intentions.
We're a couple months away from thinking another year change again.
Help me I'm cryin'.
Edited 10/3/2004 10:39 pm ET by rez
The Bus stop is finished, Jr. got a pocket full of Dough (burning a hole in his pocket).
Talked them into the Weather Vain (due to your suggestion) Beat the snow !
All is Good!
Wow, pretty sweet little building.
Sounds like it's tooltime once again. :o)
For the sake of discussion over unique structures I thought to post this link and another's summary of it for easy reading:
There is quite a lot of info on the Binisystems.com site, but you have to work for it. On the home page there is a button labeled Edi Tekos. Click that and then drill down by clicking the "next" button. After many pages of fluff, you find the details. They key is perseverance. Don't give up until you reach the last page! The last 20 or so pages give the details, although the graphics are small and details hard to discern.
To save everyone the trouble, I'll summarize the system as I understand it. This is one version of the system: there are variations.
1. Pour a steel reinforced concrete ring foundation and the floor of the finished dome. Air pipes for inflating are imbedded.
2. Lay down the inner plastic membrane on the floor and seal it to the outer ring.
3. Lay the steel reinforcement on the membrane. This consists of pairs of rebar fastened at opposite points on the ring and overlapping at the center. To avoid having all the rebar cross at the center of the dome, a more complicated pattern is used. I have a dome tent for backpacking which uses a similar pattern.
4. This is the crazy part: around each pair of rebars is a spiral of heavy steel wire which is fastened to the ring at each side.
5. Without going into too much detail, there are other rebars and spirals running around the perimeter.
6. No, this is the crazy part. Concrete is placed over the whole thing before inflation! The concrete is covered with an outer plastic membrane.
7. Then they operate blowers to lift the membrane, concrete, and steel to the final dome shape. Surprisingly, it requires a trivial amount of pressure to do this. I have confirmed the calculations on this point.
8. No, THIS is the crazy part. They then compact the concrete while it is being held up by air pressure using a system of vibratory compactors. These start at the center of the dome (highest point) and descend in spiral paths resembling a May-Pole.
9. After the concrete has cured, they strip off the inner and outer membranes for reuse.
10. It's amazing! There have been built between 1000 and 1500 of they domes around the world, many over 50 feet in diameter.
11. I'm grateful I wasn't offered stock in this company when it was starting up. I would have looked at the system and concluded it will never work. Even today, I find it hard to believe. I would be telling everybody how much money I would be worth today if I had bought that stock!
This system is especially interesting to me because:
1. I think the exposed concrete shell is a terrific long-life low-maintenance barrier against weather.
2. This guy has been doing this stuff since the 1960's, yet all my research on the Internet for concrete domes failed to show any mention of his work.
Ernie Gaw
Synergy Corporation
BiniSystems
Please click on a title to view construction and application projects.
CONSTRUCTION AUTOMATION
This paper details the concepts behind the Binisystems construction methodology.
1. BINISHELL SYSTEM (developed in Italy)
This patented method of construction, in approx. 60-120 minutes, produces circular-based, monolithic, reinforced concrete shell structures, with elliptical section, ranging in size from 12 to 40 meters in diameter. Over 1,500 buildings are in use in 23 Countries.
(a) Click here for a brochure of Binishells in New South Wales schools.
(b) A ten minute long documentary video on the construction of a Binishell complex is now available online.
(c) Click here for a brochure of Binishells Technology by Edi Tekos.
2. MINISHELL SYSTEM (developed in Australia)
This method of construction represents a development of the Binishell patent. It produces small, low-cost, square or octagonal-based, monolithic, reinforced concrete shell structures, provided with four openings resulting from the construction process itself. Several tourist villages are in use in Australia and Italy. Erection time: 30-40 minutes. It is considered to be the cheapest and fastest system for instant permanent low-cost housing shelters applicable for developing countries.
3. BINIX SYSTEM (developed in Australia)
This patented method of construction produces hexagonal-based monolithic reinforced concrete framed or ribbed dome structures with spans of 40 to 64 meters. Erection time: 120-270 minutes. A prototype was successfully produced in Australia.
4. BINISTAR SYSTEM (first conceived in Australia, then developed in Italy and U.S.A.)
This patented, demountable method of construction produces metal space structures of different shapes and dimensions, which are pneumatic-lifted from ground-level to their final self-locking position by means of an inflatable air-tight, special fabric-membrane which remains in tension, suspended from the nodal points as a final cover. Erection time: 120-180 minutes. This system was used in Italy for the 1990 World Cup Championship and in the Expo '91 of Sevilla, Spain.
5. PAK-HOME (patented in 1987 in the U.S.A. and presented in Moscow to the former U.S.S.R. authorities interested to build 14.000.000 units produced in mobile factories)
This package, provided with a unique pneumatic footing system, contains a low-cost single family shelter, which is assembled at ground level and pneumatically erected. It is a combination of four pre-fabricated, modular, basic components which are mass-produced in a mobile, demountable factory. Erection time: 60 minutes.
6. FOLD-A-STRUCT (now in its developing phase in the U.S.A.)
This method of construction produces instant, multiple, semi-permanent, demountable, square-based, classroom units, made by four identical, mass produced components provided with self-assembly energy stored inside its own components.
7. AUTOTENT (now in its developing phase in the U.S.A.)
Self-shaping mini-shelter designed for civilian-military emergency, non-pneumatic, floating, suspendable tent which is dropped by low-flying aircraft. It includes an identification light and a survival kit.
8. LUNIT'S 1 & 2 and LUNHAB'S SERIES (joint-researches presently developing in Japan and jointly presented in 1992 in Washington DC by Shimizu and Binistar at the 43rd Congress of the International Astronomical Federation)
Method for self-shaping, self-sinking, pressurized mobile units for life-supporting lunar vehicles and fixed, self-shaping structures for life supporting habitats and/or warehouses for Lunar and Martian colonies.
9. AIR-LIFT-UP (or A.L.U. system, a Joint-research presently developing in Japan)
Method for constructing multistory buildings (steel-structures and reinforced concrete) at an unprecedented construction speed, utilizing a self-erecting and auto-construction pneumatic system. Sub-license obtainable through Binistar Inc. from Shimizu Corporation
10. SOCCER STADIUMS "2002".
Three new methods to build innovative covered soccer stadiums designed for the next World Cup Championship.
This preliminary conceptual proposal has been offered to Shimizu Corporation by Binistar Inc.in association to C.S.P.E. for the constuction of a totally new design applicable to covered and openable soccer stadiums and multi-purpose centers.
11. SHIMIZU'S TRY 2004
Simizu's "The city in the Air" or "Try 2004" Concept and Binistar's preliminary conceptual construction pneumatic method proposal. This pneumatic process is partially based on the Binistar general technology and method.
12. NICO-SPACE
Self shaping space's container developed by Dante Bini and Nicolo' Bini
13. FUTURE VISION OF KYOTO FOR THE 21st CENTURY
International Competition.
14. DE YOUNG MUSEUM 2007
International Competition for the new de Young Museum in San Francisco.
15. "LA REVERSABILITÀ DEL CONSTRUIRE" (in English and Italian)
Talk delivered to the Round Table "The reversability of Construction", 26 January 2001, in Firenze, Italy.
BiniSystems | BiniHome | Contact Form
Another domey adventurer is putting this one up in North Branch Minnesota on a shallow foundation.
There is a link they supply that provides step by step photos as it goes up, with the photos being updated sometimes hourly. Pretty interesting. Good link on shallow foundations too.
copied:
http://www.naturalspacesdomes.com/livedome.htm> We will be posting pictures at the link below showing> a 49 foot diameter 4 frequency 1/2 truncation dome> as it is being erected. We plan to post every hour or> so. We are having some Internet issues because our> 75' high line of site tower doesn't work well in the rain.
> The foundation is installed using treated wood in a> system called the Frost Protected Shallow Foundation.> The perimeter walls are 16" below ground, sitting on > 8" of pea rock. We have installed 4'' of high density> foam board vertically with 4'' of foam installed> horizontally on top of the rock, extending out 24".> This eliminates the need to go down vertically to the> depth of our frost line, which is 42" to 48". The FPSF> system is explained online at:http://www.toolbase.org/secondaryT.asp?TrackID=&CategoryID=1844
Located a DIYers interesting site:
http://starship-enterprises.net/Domes/DomeHouse/DomeHouse%20Home.html
Edited 12/13/2004 11:19 am ET by rez
Some DIYers show no fear. This was used on the dome in the associated post.
http://starship-enterprises.net/papercrete/sprayer/
have you guys seen these things yet? check out http://www.yurts.com/
someone in our area put one up this fall. it hasn't been above 0 degrees F all week here. i can't imagine how cold those people must be.
Why would it be any colder than your house?
because the ceiling/walls are two layers of canvas with air in between. even with the space age reflective liner, that's nothing when its -30 degrees F.
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/fullerenes.html
http://www.tdrinc.com/hhsprings.html
So what'd you expect from California?
Edited 1/5/2005 11:41 am ET by rez
Thanks for posting that. He shut down his old site a yr ago.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
http://www.celestopea.com/Designs.htm
Bini has some real nice-looking work. I like the styling of the ones I saw. The method is interesting and I'd like to see it in person. I'm curious as to the shape limitations, if any. For example, does it have to be a true dome, or can other shapes be accomplished (multiple domes, saddle intersections, torus, ellipsoids, etc)? One thing they forego that's critical to my work is the exterior insulation. That's not said to detract from what they do, be/c the concept is fascinating to me. I _still_ can't picture how they have all the steel laid flat and yet somehow it fills a surface area that's twice the floor area. Also not sure how they control the rebar's coverage within the concrete. Still, neat stuff.
I really like this picture:
View Image
2. This guy has been doing this stuff since the 1960's, yet all my research on the Internet for concrete domes failed to show any mention of his work.
It is mentioned here: itsa. One thing to note is that it's a patented system, and so there are limits on where and how other people can mention it in any detail.
Edited 12/13/2004 12:26 pm ET by Cloud Hidden
Well now you can have a destination in mind when you plan the next vacation. :o)
Spaceman does occasionally offer seminars.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Ya, he needs to update his site.
From a FHB backcover in the old days...The Raccoon Club.
Hey!
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages/?msg=52263.1
Tim Mooney
I'll have Katrina look into it...thanks for the link bro.
Be well
####The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,
I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
what happens after the rubber breaks down from the UV...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
every hundred years a freshup.
20 mybe is more realistic..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
http://www.telacommunications.com/geodome.htm
Don't know who it is but somebody's thinking...
View ImageView ImageI stumped Theodora at trivia. -Jan.2005
cool....
one piece fits all...
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
PS...
the purple gang says yoiu moved...
took yur house with ya and disconnected the phone...
I believe they are now despondent...
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
http://www.naturalspacesdomes.com/livedome.htm
Golly, these guys just won't quit.
Pretty interesting install on the insulation.
The South Pole Station Dome.
http://greatbytes.com/savethedome/tour.htm
"Live Free, not Die"
Edited 2/5/2005 12:40 pm ET by razz
http://nativeearthlingworld.starship-enterprises.net/MILD_TOC.htm"Live Free, not Die"
Everybody gets so concerned over UV breakdown with auto tires. I don't have any technical testing data but...
How often have you seen a disinegrated car tire where it would be so destroyed to affect the stability of an earth wall like that?
I meam they can sit for years on a long dead vehicle in direct rays of southern sun intensity and still maintain enough integrity to hold air let alone rammed earth.
be rammed
be Rama
be just be
"Live Free, not Die"
"Live Free, not Die"
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/fuller/index.html"Live Free, not Die"
http://www.thermapanel.net/
http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=63
http://www.americanantigravity.com/hurtubise.shtml"Live Free, not Die"
These guys are still at it...
http://www.naturalspacesdomes.com/livedome.htm"Live Free, not Die"
An interesting broadcast regarding the life of Buckminister Fuller.
Scroll down to 'Thomas Zung'.
http://www.kidzonline.org/windstar/"Live Free, not Die"
http://www.naturalspacesdomes.com/livedome.htm
This crew is really being so thorough so I can't help wondering about the 16inches of fiberglass atop the foam block spacers used for the venting.
Seems a sprayfoam adhered right to the sheathing, tho' more costly, would save more in the end considering the present labor costs.
That and quality of insulating value of the foam compared to the fiberglass exposed to air currents.
It was mentioned that the fiberglass used here was of a stiffer industrial grade. Perhaps that might cut down on the aircurrents. How deep into 16inches of fiberglass batting can it go?
They mentioned testing lamb's wool insulation as well as recycled denim which was rejected as to difficult to cut.
It's curious as to why they rejected sprayfoam.View Image
SanchoRon the caballero bowed low as he waved his sombrero and said ...goodbye.
Edited 3/3/2005 11:28 am ET by the razzman
$$$$$$
materials and labor...
ya gotta have a good PR department when ya squeeze the pennies...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
View Image
<!-- -->View Image View Image View Image View Image View Image View Image
View Image View Image View Image View Image
View Image
( 1 of 1 )
United States Patent Application
20050120643
Kind Code
A1
Siedentopf, Robert Andreas
June 9, 2005
Primary-geodesic least surface shapes for predetermined ground plots and functions
Abstract
A means to create the shape for a structure that holds the most space under the least area for any predetermined polygonal ground plot. The ground plot is cut into a sheet material as an open window, called a plot-frame 2. The plot-frame 2 could also be created on the ground itself. A membrane 1 is placed over the plot-frame 2 and a pressure differential is created on both sides of the membrane 1. Functions that take on polygonal shapes are placed on the membrane 1 that would be entryways; connection planes and other flat polygons are achieved by means of constraints 4. The final static display shape of the membrane 1 shows the shape of the intended structure above ground.
Inventors:
Siedentopf, Robert Andreas; (Colorado Springs, CO)
Correspondence Name and Address:
ROBERT A SIEDENTOPF
1465 ALVARADO
#103
COLORADO SPRINGS
CO
80910
US
Serial No.:
002939
Series Code:
11
Filed:
December 3, 2004
U.S. Current Class:
52/81.4
U.S. Class at Publication:
052/081.4
Intern'l Class:
E04B 007/08
Claims
I. I claim a least surface geodesic shaped structure that matches up to any ground-plot and has the required polygonal functions such as connection-planes, entryways, view-ports and other flat or curved predetermined surfaces that could be demanded upon its surface by, fixing the shape of any plot of ground that the structure is required to cover to an open window within a plot-frame (2); expanding the membrane (1) from the open window within the plot-frame (2) with a even pressure force between the plot-frame and the base (3); while creating functions on the membrane (1) as polygonal surfaces whereby, constraints (4) hold the membrane (1) to points/lines/planes by fixing the surface of the membrane (1) to the places that it needs to be for the polygonal shapes that it is required to have, so that the membrane (1) shows the least surface above the plot-frame (2) with the proper shapes for the functions that the structure is required to have.
Description
[0001] This invention is based on my provisional application No. 60/528158, dated Dec. 9, 2003 TECHNICAL FIELD [0002] This artwork relates to all least surface space enclosing structures over predetermined ground plots with functions placed on the surface such as entryways, connection planes, solar panels and the like. Such artwork is called geodesic domes and space enclosing structures. There is an infinite set of shapes other than the sphere that holds space as least surface shape, that was said could be geodesic. BACKGROUND ART [0003] Within the history of man the first geodesic-like sphere has been under the paws of the Guardian Lions that have been placed outside the temples and gates of China at least 400 years ago. Like all of the current geodesic structures, it seems to resemble a polyhedral made of triangles that resemble a sphere. However, having a geodesic like sphere is not the same as a space enclosing structure. [0004] Next there is a true geodesic dome created by Dr. Walter Bauersfeld in 1922 in Jena, Germany, used for a planetarium-roof that was the embodiment of his work. This structure was made from a divided icsoahedron cast to a sphere to allow his projection devices to remain in focus. It can be assumed he projected rays to the junctures of the material he used as spherical chords that was his framework for this, from a central point. It could also be assumed he didn't see the dome structure which he created, as the roof of the Carl Zeiss optical works, as a single structure. His concern may have just been to have a proper surface for his projectors to function correctly, and the dome itself was perhaps overlooked as a single work. [0005] Richard Buckminster Fuller's first artwork on this subject in 1954, U.S. Pat. No. 2,682,235 made it singular and useful unto itself. It is what Fuller said a geodesic dome could be after this artwork, which matters most of all. Published within Synergetics in 1975, in section 703.01 he says "Geodesic domes can be either symmetrically spherical, like a billiard ball, or asymmetrically spherical, like pears, caterpillars, or elephants." He said also in section 703.03 "All geodesic domes are tensegrity structures whether or not the tension-compression differentiations are visible to the observer". "Tensegrity" is a short form of the term "tensional integrity". Within section 702.01 he also said; "We have a mathematical phenomenon known as a geodesic. A geodesic is the most economical relationship between any two events". If Fuller is to be given credit for the geodesic dome, the statements should be combined. To me they mean that it is the shape, and not the polyhedral surface that represents what is a geodesic. I call such shapes "primary geodesic surfaces" and the polyhedral representation of them as a "secondary geodesic" no matter the pattern of polygons. He removed the commonly assumed mathematical rules that govern the current geodesic domes and the polyhedral surface. There are no mathematical rules that could be applied to the surface of an elephant Fuller never explained how to create such geodesic surfaces, only that they would be geodesic domes. This current artwork covers the creation of them. [0006] Still looking at Fuller and the bulk of the remaining artwork, most show the polyhedral representation of the sphere as a structure that is called a geodesic dome. Hannula with his U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,329 in 1974 titled as "Hollow Structure" gives a curved set of lines to become a geodesic-like on the surface of the sphere. Also Herrmann U.S. Pat. No. 6,295,785 with a pattern based on the octahedron and not the icsoahedron of Fullers first work U.S. Pat. No. 2,682,235. Within Herrmann's work comes the voice of Yacoe U.S. Pat. No. 4,679,361 saying a geodesic is a representation of a sphere. Leonard Spunt U.S. Pat. No. 3,959,937, "Modular dome structure" in 1976, shows a sphere dome done in circles that is also a polygon much like the triangle, depending on your schooling in geometry. Spunt shows us that the circles could be from cones, all with the tips concentric to the sphere and the axis of each a ray from that center. Circles would come from the intersection of the cones and the sphere. All the commonalities of each of the many geodesic and space-enclosing artworks show a polyhedral representation of the surface of the sphere as a shell of polygons. This leads us to think that there could be more geodesic patents than anyone might care to guess at, that could be copied to a sphere. Also some that look very geodesic seem to just be called "structures", making the line between the two types very blurred. For all the effort placed into finding common sets of points between the sphere and some solids, rays and cones cast from the center of the sphere, none are able to explain the elephant or caterpillar. Maybe it's time to stop finding all the mathematical sets of points common to the sphere and whatever method or solid, used to divide a sphere into a geodesic. Fuller told us that the sphere is a geodesic if one can see a polygonal pattern or not. Perhaps defining the geodesic dome as a polyhedral representation of just a surface is incorrect. Maybe it should be looked at as least surface relationships that nature can produce as geodesic structures, and what Fuller said they can be. This current artwork shows us how to do just that. It is also able to reproduce with this current artwork, many past geodesic polyhedral surfaces with just 3 parts. [0007] Of all the works remaining on space enclosing structures there are three people that need to be noted. The first is Helmut Bergman U.S. Pat. No. 4,258,513 showing that a structure can have rectangles providing a function on the surface for solar collectors by providing a place to mount them. Also from Helmut Bergman there is U.S. Pat. No. 4,364,207 that can allow for a changing ground plot titled "Extended Space Enclosing Structure"; it shows a somewhat variable ground plot. His works are creative because they show that such structures can be close to the geodesic sphere and have the surface changed to also include rectangles, for some required function such as for solar-panels, doors or clustering. His creations are also based on the icsoahedron as are many others, but one has to look closely. However creative this falls short of showing a least surface over any ground plot. The extended structure is limited to an elongated circle only. However it is the idea of polygons other than triangles as an intended function that makes my current artwork more valuable. I have to extend a full measure of credit to Bergman for showing us this. I hope to have fully exploited his teaching with this present artwork. [0008] The last two remaining artworks worth mentioning starts with David B South U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,967 in 1979 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,074 in 1982. He inflates an inelastic membrane that is formed to be spherical-like; because of the manner in which it was made and used. His system relies on the pneumatic pressure within it to become stiff. Later in 1999 with U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,438 he told us this again, when he found the need to place a net over the membrane to help it retain that shape. Because this is a sphere based structure, I consider it a primary geodesic, because there can be seen no "tension-compression differentiations" as noted by Fuller above. Unfortunately, with the work of David South, the shape of the structure is predetermined at the time of manufacture of that membrane. It only becomes rigid under pressure and is unable to produce a least surface area for the space it binds between it and the ground when inflated. It is unable to conform to any ground plot. Making a membrane in that manner for a different ground plot, as a least surface above that ground, would require a guess at best. He has not been able to teach us the means to find the other shapes Fuller talked about. This current artwork has no such short comings. [0009] Along side and before David South there is the work that can be seen on the internet at http://www.binisystems.com/binisystems.html. Here Dante N Bini shows us a system much like that used by David South, but the membrane has the ability to be elastic and can be stopped at any level of inflation. However as the video shows within that web page, connections to the planes are made by cutting away the surface of one dome to come into contact with the next. The perimeter of the second dome has to encroach into the perimeter of the first. This tends to limit when and where such a system can be employed, and requires virgin ground. This system would be unable to maintain the least surface with the connection plane in place as a flat polygon. Such would be the case if the dome had to connect to a flat surface from an existing structure. Even if this lesson from Dante Bini is most close to this current artwork, it can't show us how to implement the polygonal functions that Helmut Bergman has given us. He did not explain how to produce the other asymmetrically spherical shapes Fuller told us about. This current artwork takes care of the need for virgin ground and cutting away sections to connect the dome to other structures, and any encroachments into that structure. [0010] To account for the geodesic dome as to what Fuller said it can be it may be time to let go of the idea of projecting points, lines and circles to the sphere. The sphere is only a mathematical real world model of a least surface shape for the volume it holds, and the best at that. It may be that the sphere has been used almost exclusively until now, because its math is relatively easy to work, the points easy to produce. This current artwork removes the math of the surface and allows us to use a simpler means to create even more complex geodesic surfaces with functions on its surface. BRIEF SUMMERY [0011] This current artwork was created to confirm an equation I found for a geodesic dome with a square foot print to the ground. The shape that the membrane 1 displayed, matched the equation well. It did show a square geodesic dome can have an area only 3.0-4.5 percent above the area of a sphere that holds twice the volume that is displaced by the membrane 1. In other words twice the area of the displaced membrane 1, is only 3.0-4.5 percent above the area of a sphere that can hold twice the space displaced by the membrane 1. Also I didn't know that Fuller had said they could be anything but spherical at that time. After it came to my attention what Fuller said geodesic domes could be, it was still many weeks later that I realized what I had on my desk. I also have to credit a math book that was resting on the surface of the membrane 1, for showing me the membrane 1 is self-correcting. [0012] The system works because of the nature of the membrane 1 and the pressure across its two surfaces. The tension in the membrane 1 caused by making it larger in area by that force, will act to return it to a least area. In turn the pressure that caused the change in area wants to expand in all directions. The net result is that the membrane 1 shows a static display of the two opposing forces in balance. The membrane 1 shows the least area for the amount of space it has displaced. If the pattern cut into the plot-frame 2 happens to be the similar polygonal shape of some predetermined ground plot; the membrane 1 shows all least surface areas for any amount of space that could be above that ground-plot, regardless of target height or the amount of space within the final structure. If the amount of space that is bound by the membrane 1 and the membrane 1 itself become very large, it also becomes very spherical. Because of this action when made massive in size, it shows clearly that the membrane 1 is spherically packing the pressure agent. That tells us the membrane 1 is always seeking a least area. Much as a small drop of water free from outside forces would. The reduction in area is a natural event for such systems. [0013] With the complexity of the math I used to create this shape, the membrane 1 shows the more correct result. It shows surfaces for equations that may never be found. The membrane 1 allows us to map and collect data for the shape it shows, so it can be reproduced in scale, or as the final size of the structure. All solutions that the membrane 1 shows are least surface shapes. I would call such shapes "primary-geodesic" shapes. Expanding the membrane 1 from the open window of the plot-frame 2 shows one side of the asymmetrically spherical shapes that Fuller said are geodesic. The second half would be the mirror reflection of the membrane 1 past the edge of the window cut into the plot-frame 2. The primary shape maybe represented as a polyhedral, and than becomes what I call a secondary geodesic. The math of the surface is no longer required. The collection of data points that make up the surface is all that is necessary, or as already noted, the surface itself. [0014] It has to be the nature of that surface that the membrane 1 shows, which bonds any amount of space, how that surface is shaped, and the functions each surface has imposed on itself; that makes something geodesic. Just as it is the surface of the pear, elephant, and sphere, that allows them to be geodesic. All self seeking least areas are therefore geodesic. The mathematical rules used to explain the geodesic sphere will not work for all the other asymmetrically spherical cases. As nature shows us the most well-fed elephant is the most spherical, that too is a least surface seeking system. [0015] Most of all the past artwork on geodesic structures can be reproduced with this current one by making use of an appropriate plot-frame 2 and a single constraint 4. The constraint 4 might look something like a sea-urchin, with its tips in all the right places. With the membrane 1 over this and the correct pressure differential across its face, even the polygonal surfaces that comprise the polyhedral geodesic dome can be recreated. By adding/removing, or deflecting the end point of any arm on the constraint, any number of geodesic surfaces can be produced with one plot-frame 2. Considering that there can be an infinite number of constraints and plot-frames 2, in any combination; the practical use of this invention comes clear. [0016] Looking at the membrane 1 and its reflected surface and area past the plot-frame 2 there are some things worth noting. All secondary-geodesic surfaces that are polyhedral representations of the primary-geodesic surface presented by the membrane 1 have a higher surface/volume ratio than the primary shape. All non hemispherical shapes produced by the membrane 1 have a higher surface/volume ratio than the sphere that holds the same volume as twice the one displaced by the membrane 1. As I have found with a square window within the plot-frame 2 the amount that its surface area to volume relationship is higher than the sphere, becomes unimportant when the functionally functionalism of the structure is considered. Each plot-frame has a null or dip in the surface area to volume relationship as the amount of space displaced by the membrane moves from zero to infinity. Each different or geometric none-similar polygon, cut into the plot-frame 2, has a different null number. Only a circle cut into a plot-frame 2 and a good quality membrane 1 will produce a null value of zero. This happens only when the height of the displaced membrane 1 from the plot-frame 2 is equal to the radius of the circle cut into the plot-frame 2. That is because one would have to compare the S/V of the membrane to the S/V of the sphere as noted above. This is true for all none-constrained membranes 1. There can be no negative null numbers. All constrained membranes 1 should have an S/V ratio above the null for that plot-frame 2. [0017] Constraints only hold the membrane 1 to points/lines/planes that the membrane 1 may or may not reach on its own. These constraints may hold the membrane 1 to a needed door frame size on the edge of a ground-plot. The remaining free area of the membrane 1 will still show the least area for its displaced space no matter the amount. The only problems that can occur come from the failure to make precise parts and the ability of the membrane 1 to maintain an even surface tension. [0018] A good test for the quality of the membrane 1 is when it is expanded from a circular plot-frame 2 and how close it comes to a hemisphere when the height is equal to the radius of the circle. Because the shape of the sphere is known so well, the surface of the membrane 1 would be mapped and compared to that of a true hemisphere. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0019] FIG. 1 is an expanded view of unit with a square within the plot-frame 2; [0020] FIG. 2 is an assembled view of FIG. 1; [0021] FIG. 3 shows a static display of FIG. 2; [0022] FIG. 4 the final shape of membrane 1 and the space inside; [0023] FIG. 5 the space of FIG. 4 with a set of nodes for polygon framework connections; [0024] FIG. 6 one of any geodesic framework over the shape; [0025] FIG. 7 a realization of Fullers Elephant with this system; [0026] FIG. 8 shows one basic system of FIG. 1 unit with constraints for doors; [0027] FIG. 9 gives shapes of the membrane 1 found in FIG. 8; [0028] FIG. 10 is a more complex plot-frame 2 and simple wire constraint 4; [0029] FIG. 11 is the primary geodesic surface shown in FIG. 10; [0030] FIG. 12 gives one of many cluster systems that can be made with this artwork. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [0031] FIG. 1 shows an expanded view of a plot-frame 2, with a square as the open window that the membrane 1 will be pushed from. The shape cut into the plot-frame 2 can be any closed shape. The plot-frame 2 is best made from a stiff, thin sheet material. It can also be that the ground serves as both the plot-frame 2 and the base 3. In that case the plot-frame 2 would be a closed polygon, or cross section of any object upon the ground. [0032] The square in the plot-frame 2 of FIG. 1 could be a square predetermined ground-plot of any size. The base 3 allows us to seal the system and place a pressure on one side of the membrane 1. The base 3 can be made from about anything that will hold up to the forces that will act on it. The amount of space between the membrane 1 and the base 3 form a containment vessel. The pressure agent within that containment vessel and used to push on the membrane 1 can be any suitable and finely divided substance. Some such elements could be but are not limited to; air, oil, none set plaster-like substance or water. The pressure can also come from heat, chemicals or the removal of ambient air. It only matters that a pressure difference can be created and maintained. If an entry-port is required for some pressure agent, it is best located within the base 3 and within the open area of the plot-frame 2. The membrane 1 is said to be one, that is able to become easily expanded, and will display an even surface tension when its surface is distorted. Most times a rubber-like compound will work best, but the membrane 1 is not limited to this. A hot plastic in an almost liquid state, may also be employed, and allowed to cool and set hard. [0033] FIG. 2 shows the assembled view of the unit. It shows a starting zero displaced volume across the open window of the plot-frame 2. The unit is assembled by any means that will hold the membrane 1 tightly to plot-frame 2 and to the containment vessel, that the pressure is found within. Any means to bond this is usable, such as glue, screws, clamps and locking clips or a combination thereof. What ever the means to combine and seal the unit is unimportant, so that has been omitted for clarity of view. At this stage the unit is assembled and ready. It can be that the plot-frame 2 is also mounted to the side of a tank. The volume of space in that tank is disregarded, because the only concern is with the amount of space that the membrane 1 displaces across the plot-frame 2. However if the plot-frame 2 was mounted to a tank large enough, the pressure differential across the surfaces of the membrane 1 could come from a reduction of pressure within that tank. In that case the higher pressure would come from the ambient air. The membrane 1 will show the same result no matter the direction of its displacement, as long as it is free to do so. [0034] In FIG. 3 the membrane 1 is displaced via some pressure increase between it and the base 3. The surface of the membrane 1 is larger. The amount of space that the membrane 1 moved past its rest state within the open window in the plot-frame 2, and the area upon the membrane 1 represent the size and shape of the intended final structure. It is showing the least surface for that amount of space passed from that plot-frame 2, regardless of the volume of that space. It is at this stage that the surface of the membrane 1 is mapped to within the three dimensions of space. The more detail in this mapping and analysis of the surface of the membrane 1, the better any reproduction will be. The final target structure will be similar to the shape of the membrane 1, be that larger, smaller or of equal size. Also the membrane it self might become the inner or outer shell of the structure it self; and then be removed and reused, or kept in place. [0035] FIG. 4 shows the membrane 1 by itself or the shape of the space between the membrane 1 and the base 3 if plaster was used as a pressure agent and allowed to harden. In such a manner as that, the shape can be removed, copied and measured in more detail. It can also provide a scale copy, showing the shape and volume of the structure. This would be of use if a model was required. [0036] FIG. 5 shows some locations over FIG. 4 that could be nodes which would be used to divide the surface with a set of chords producing a polyhedral representation of the surface in FIG. 4. The amount of nodes and the distances between them is all relative to the wishes of the person that is to produce the final structure. One such wish could be to have all the chords about equal. A different intention might be to have the least waste from an unlimited pile of lumber made up of 8 foot pieces. The larger the number of nodes the more the final structure will resemble the surface of the membrane 1. When the surface of FIG. 4 was mapped in to three-dimensional spaces, so were the nodes. It is than up to the rules of analytical geometry to show us the distances and angles, or any other information that will aid us to be able to produce the polyhedral surface. The polyhedral surface for FIG. 5's nodes can be seen in FIG. 6. [0037] At this stage all the details have been covered to produce the elephant or any other object Fuller talked about. The only change is to the window cut into the plot-frame 2. In FIG. 7A, there is a plot-frame 2 with the shape of the side view, or horizontally lit shadow of an elephant upon a wall cut into it. The base 3 is omitted or assumed to be under the plot-frame 2 for clarity of view. FIG. 7B shows what the membrane 1 would be like when reflected past the open window cut into the plot-frame 2 in FIG. 7A. For the view of 7B to be clear the base is omitted. What can be seen in FIG. 7B is that any increases or decreases with the pressure differential on the sides of the membrane 1 will show an elephant that could be better or lesser fed, much as nature would in the real world. To represent the caterpillar, I would cut the top view of one as seen on the ground into the plot-frame 2. The result would be a tunnel like shape on the membrane 1. This approach would even work if the caterpillar was bent, as if it was in the middle of making a turn. For the pear one would be cut from stem to navel, a copy that cross-section would be cut into the plot-frame 2 as an open window. If the membrane 1 is expanded to a proper size even the indentation at the location of the navel is reproduced, if it was somewhat hidden within the pear to start with. The membrane 1 would not show perfect detail. Nature imposed more functions than the membrane 1 would be able to show. But the overall representation would be close and appear "child like". In the case of the elephant the membrane would produce one with only two legs, but nature required the real one to be able to walk so it has four. The topic and use of constraints 4 is next. However constraints 4 could be added to the bottom of the legs on the plot-frame 2 to give it flat pads. The more proper constraints 4 added the more close it would become in appearance to the real thing. One should even be able to reproduce some of the features that are in the head and joints of the elephant if care is taken in the formation and placement of them. [0038] FIG. 8 shows the same plot-frame 2 and base 3 as FIG. 2 did with some constraints 4a and 4b applied to the base 3 and within the plot-frame 2. In FIG. 8 the membrane 1 is removed for clarity. Constraint 4a could be made from a bent rod, or from sheet or block material as with 4b. It could also happen that each constraint 4A and 4B are just two poles ending at the proper locations, that of the top outside corners of the ones shown in the FIG. 8. Constraints are made to hold the membrane 1 to any point/line/plane required, for the function intended. As just noted there can be more than one that will satisfy the same condition and impose the same function on the membrane 1. Constraints 4 can be made in any fashion that they need, as long as they hold the membrane 1 to the required placement, and need not be in place until the membrane 1 is partly of fully inflated; aiding in keeping an even surface tension upon the membrane 1. They can be of any shape and on any area or side of the membrane 1, also could be of any number upon the membrane, but can not cover the whole surface of same. They could be made in sets so they hold the membrane on both sides, act only to confine that point/line/plane of the membrane 1 to a required location for providing some function. A function on the membrane 1 could be for a door, connection plane to allow for a dome to be added to an existing wall that the dome needs to team up with. A function on the membrane 1 acts only on the surface of it, and because of that only on the surface of the structure itself. They can hold a portion of the membrane 1 flat and vertical to mount some object to the shell of the structure that wouldn't work well if the surface of it had a continuous curve. One such object might be a set of cabinets. Constraints need not be in contact with the edge of the plot-frame 2. One such constraint 4 could be a match set used for a set of solar collection panels, and be held above and beneath the membrane 1. [0039] I have allowed the ones in FIG. 8 to be used for two different sized doors, or connection planes. Each of the constraints in FIG. 8 could be at any location, and the membrane 1 would still show all least surface area solutions. All shapes that the membrane 1 takes on would be primary-geodesic shapes. Any polyhedral representation of the membrane 1 would be a secondary-geodesic. [0040] FIGS. 9a and 9b show the final shape of the membrane 1 that would be produced in FIG. 8. FIG. 9c is one of any secondary-geodesic polyhedral shapes that could be copied to the primary-geodesic surface, much in the same manner that all past geodesic artworks have been copied to the sphere. It was done with the membrane 1 expanded or displaced from the square plot-frame 2 above and herein. Because the constraints in FIG. 8 apply a fixed height to part of the surface of the membrane 1, they need to be to scale for the plot-frame 2 and target height and size of the final structure, and of the intended doors. There may or may not be similar considerations for constraints intended for other functions on different plot-frames 2. [0041] FIG. 10 shows a simple arched rod or bent wire type of constraint 4 and a symmetrically cut plot-frame 2 for the membrane 1 to expand from. One or both halves of the surface of this shape of the membrane 1 as seen in FIG. 11 may be constructed at any one time, as the finances of the person doing the work would allow. This adds a freedom to the engineering, manufacture and finance sides of the structure. As was the case before, there could be constraints 4 placed around the edge of the plot-frame 2 for entryways. The option to add and remove constraints 4 to FIG. 11 is endless. For the first time the primary geodesic surface can take upon it the wishes of the person that will have it in the end. There is no longer a need to confine geodesic surfaces to the sphere and the rigidness of assumed rules of math, which has been used to give the polyhedral surface. [0042] FIG. 12 shows what can be done with repetitive use of just a square and rectangular plot-frame 2 and an expanded membrane 1. This cluster arrangement could also be made as the finances allow. Constraints 4 would be made to match the tunnel pathways that run between the domes, as well as the intended size of the doors. Locations of the tunnels or pathways and the doors are open to the whims of the designer. Each unit in FIG. 12 would have a least area, for the functions imposed on the membrane 1. It could be that the plot of ground that is covered by the cluster could be cut into a single plot-frame 2 and the least surface and primary-geodesic surface could be found for that system as a whole. The membrane 1 expanded from that plot-frame 2 would be more flowing and less blocked than the one seen in FIG. 11. It would appear blocked only where it was constrained for some intended function such as entryways. [0043] The idea of primary-geodesic shapes allows a structure to take advantage of the functions that people require and the cost of maintaining controlled environments. The advantage of having the most volume of space inside a structure could come in handy when the outside environment would tend to "bleed away" the air inside; such as would be found on Mars or the Moon. This system however is most creative when used to cover the foundation or pad left behind from a structure that was removed by wind, fire, or water. Than edge of the pad or foundation would than act as the plot-frame 2, and the base 3, with constraints 4 in place at the required time during the final display of the membrane 1. This would allow one to at least create a solid temporary cover in times of need. There are a number of means to fabricate both the primary and secondary geodesic surfaces found with this system. This artwork is not intended to cover such assembly of the structure as there is already many means available.
* * * * *
View Image
View Image View Image View Image View Image
View Image View Image View Image View Image View Image View Image<!-- -->
A person with no sense of humor about themselves is fullashid
http://members.aol.com/kydomeliving/
A person with no sense of humor about themselves is fullashid
http://www.equilatere.net/maine.htm
http://www.calearth.org/
as Buddha said to the hotdog vendor .... "make me one with everything"
http://www.outpostalpha.com/
sleeps till noon but before it's dark...
http://www.geometrica.com/Bulk_Storage/index.html
sleeps till noon but before it's dark...
The Free Spirit Sphere - inspiration for the relocatable home of the future
"What the sphere does do is force us into a cooperative living arrangement with the forest. The trees have to be nurtured and protected to keep the sphere safe. I think they create a little bubble of altered space in the midst of a confused world. It feels very refreshing to be there.
"I believe we are far more than just bodies, with brains. I think we are connected to the creative source at the level of Spirit. I live my life from that point of view. This was just one of the ideas that filtered down and I was inspired to build it. The reality of it surpassed my wildest dreams.
One of the major advantages of the design is that the 500 lb wooden sphere can be easily moved from one location to another within the forest by ropes and tackles. "I have slung them from tree to tree during placement or removal," says Tom. "They can also be helicoptered in to remote sites."
"Climbing the trees is the most difficult yet exhilarating work. Typically it takes a crew of three men a day to get a sphere rigged in the trees. Then it takes several more days to set up the stairway and suspension bridges. The whole set-up comes down in a day and vanishes without a trace.View Image
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Edited 12/17/2005 5:09 pm ET by razzman
Edited 12/17/2005 5:11 pm ET by razzman
http://www.outpostalpha.com/
Outpost AlphaHousing Concept by George BerzHOME PAGEELEVATION / FLOOR PLANDISCUSSION GROUPretirement planning
View ImageView Image
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
rez, man, is that dinosaur in the corner part of your signature line or the discussion board link?
Awesome looking sphere. Wonder how it would bob in the water?TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
I don't know. Damn thing looks like it's roaring.
be around around the mulberry bush
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
I see cloud got mentioned in the lineup.
http://www.survivalblog.com/
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Note from JWR: Many thanks for the recent wave of 10 Cent Challenge donations! That makes me feel like I'm on track with what I've been writing, and that I'm helping folks get squared away.
Dome Homes as Survival Retreats by Rourke (SAs: Retreat Architecture, Monolithic Domes, Harder Homes and Gardens)
Domes have been the long term favorite of futurists, and while they suffer from some peoples’ non-acceptance of the unconventional features, they do have several features very desirable to survivalists. The dome of course is a near perfect form of nature. Take an arch, known for its strength in building and bridge construction, and turn it in a circle. Now it’s a dome, and it’s even stronger. Domes use the force of gravity and the extreme compression strength of materials like concrete (cement and sand/gravel mix) to give a clear span, and support tremendous weight on top of it. This can make it a very good choice for underground or earth bermed structures. Depending on your location though, and the fallout or weather you anticipate receiving, covering it may not even be necessary to survive the most extreme conditions. (Note that I am not considering geodesic domes here; note they are more conventional in material and construction)Sound intriguing? Well, let’s start with the bad news. Here are the down sides, the three problems that stand in the way for most people to buy or build dome homes or survival retreats:
Lack of reasonable conventional financing (from banks and mortgage companies) since dome homes are not conventional buildings. Not many of us can pay cash for or even build for cash a house or cottage.
The risk of low resale value. Dome buyers are few and far between, thus finding a buyer to pay at least what you have into can be really difficult. This limits you to almost never moving, or if you do, taking a sizable loss.
One spouse/significant other simply not willing to be so non-conventional as to not have non-vertical and inward sloping walls, and round or pie shaped rooms.
But now the good news, the advantages of having a dome survival retreat:
Most have a very high R [insulation] value, and are extremely energy efficient and cheap and easy to live in.
Most cost about the same as conventional construction, $100 per square foot finished turn key. For the do-it-yourselfer, you can put up the shell for around $30-35 per square foot.
Most will survive the winds and even the debris from a F5 tornado, or Category 5 hurricane. Pay for a little extra concrete and it will outright stand up to a rifle bullet. Remember also, the aerodynamic shape is helping you too. Wind blows around it, and bullets and debris to some extent are deflected (as with any building, your windows are your weak point, consider shutters). Also note your entire dome (retreat) survives, not just the bunker. It is far more difficult, dark, and energy intensive to live in a bunker after TSHTF in a world where there is no insurance check coming to rebuild.
Concrete, steel, and ever fiberglass are fire resistant (or fire proof) materials to built with. They are also impervious to insects, critters, and can last practically forever if built right.
If designed correctly (open concept) they can be equal to or ever cheaper to build than conventional buildings, especially for the do-it-yourselfer.
In an area of limited access, some of the pre-fab models may be very good choice than attempting to do a conventional stick build.
Many are modular in design and allow you to plan a really nice multi-family development for a survival group.
They can be made to be practically air tight, far more so than conventional construction.
These are the four major types of non-geodesic dome homes:1.) Concrete Domes. The clear leader here IMHO is The Monolithic Dome Institute, http://www.monolithic.com Since around 1970 David South has continuously innovated his unique and near perfect (IMHO) method of constructing the “eco dome.” A heavy UV resistant and waterproof member is manufactured by Monolithic per design, and then tied down and inflated on site secured to a completed round foundation. You then enter through an “air chamber” (plywood box) as industrial fans keep the dome inflated, and spray polyurethane foam on the inside if the dome several inches thick (depending on dome size). The dome now stands on its own, and using some ladders, scaffolding, you can now use some clever little pieces of metal to hold rebar to the foam on the inside at just the right gap. Using special a concrete pump, nine bag mix (optimal strength) concrete is sprayed on the inside to make dome of a single pour of concrete, thus being monolithic – all one continuous rock. This creates a very pure and very strong dome, but even better, it can an insulation factor of up R65. So efficient is that, they recommend cooling it with a just a RV air conditioner, and only the smallest wood stove or fireplace or you will simply over cool or overheat yourself. Another great feature is the flexibility. Domes can be stretched wide, tall, or oblong to order, and even better, molded into one another (continuous attached multi domes). A great design is a home with one dome for each room, see http://www.mountainviewdome.com . Making a monolithic dome is something you can hire a certified contractor to do, or you can go to Texas for a week and get certified yourself. Check out the monolithic.com site, it is just loaded with information, articles, and other spin off sites.2.) Concrete Dome Home with Square Walls: This company is about as close to conventional as you are going to get with a concrete “dome” home. http://www.terra-dome.com The come to your site and use elaborate forms to create buildings made up of either 24’ x 24’ or 28’ x 28’ modules with very heavy concrete roofs. The site has several plans shown. I happen to like #12 for a three bedroom retreat. A lot of concrete in this design, and a very strong building that also gives you a more convention feel to it inside at least.3.) Fiberglass Domes. If you are building in a very remote location, an island in particular where shipping weight is a major cost and concrete may not be available, consider http://www.domesintl.com These modular and lightweight domes can also be made with extra fiberglass to make them strong to the point of being bullet resistant. These models are fast erecting, efficient, and able to withstand extremely high winds. Be sure to see the multi-family designs too, and imagine a survival condo development.4.) Steel shell underground dome or arch homes. The other option here is the more conventional approach, using a steel structure to make an arch with a half dome on the back, and then bury it. I’ll offer three sites for this, but also an article as a warning on steel corrosion underground, just to be fair since it is a concern. Remember, no matter which method you use to build underground, pay for proper, if not extra, water proofing. The cost of corrective repair, digging it up, is high. See: http://www.formworksbuilding.com or http://earthshelter.com or http://www.americansheltertechnologies.com and (note warning about underground steel corrosion http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1280 )
Sorry if I have missed some types or manufacturers, I tried to present the major ones. For more information on concrete domes in particular, see this association http://www.itsa.info and for some cool further ideas of what you can do, check out this builder http://www.cloudhidden.org/ - Rourke (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/survivalretreat/ )
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Ah geez, if I'm getting mention on a survivalist blog, I gotta improve my marketing...aiming for the more luxury residential market. Oh well. Who said, "Say what you want about me as long as you spell my name right."?They mention Mountain View...that was my first paid design.They got some facts wrong...had me as a builder, should be designer...mentioned getting certified at a course, but no one is certifying anyone...etc.But they did spell my name right, so no right to complain, huh? :)
An interesting site from Dan Phillips, author of an alternative building article in Fine Homebuilding January 2001.
http://www.phoenixcommotion.com/
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
http://www.midcoast.com/~bo/TiltUpGroveDome.html
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
http://www.texasmusicforge.com/gimmeshelter.html
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
http://www.bubbledeck.com/start.htm
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Interesting stuff. Had never heard of it before.Didn't see any mention of cost comparisons, though.
I found it interesting, too. Crappy web site...did a bad job of explaining the product...the chart comparing to a slab was completely confusing. As a product, similar in principle to a product like Tridipanel with the welded wire mesh layers separated by insulation of whatever thickness with connecting struts. In this case, plastic balls are used instead of EPS. My engineer says the Tridi structure is quite strong, so I guess this would be too. The most important concrete in the bubble thing would be where the truss is.
On the subject of unique structures I was wondering about the possibility of a living dome in the developing countries where bamboo can be grown easily.
By living, I mean might it be possible to weave the bamboo shoots as they grow and continue to grow, into a dome shaped structure of sorts, entirely intertwined with each other?
After an initial course of weaving a second layer could be added, then a third, fourth ad infinitum to wherever. Someplace in the layers a layer of rubberized roofing could be added after cutting to stop the growth, then additional bamboo layers following.
Depending on how much nourishment bamboo requiresperhaps a concentrated fertilizer or just the normal soil could then be added for beginning growth on the dome itself. (recalling an old purchase of 4 ft stacks of unused brick where on one stack a 5 ft pine tree was growing, sustaining itself from the moisture in the center of the brick stack by sending tiny roots down inside the seams of the adjoining bricks)
Perhaps it could be used to alleviate housing problems in those third world countries.
be no I quit back in the late 70s so I ain't been smoking no herb
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
View Image
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Edited 1/19/2006 12:41 pm ET by razzman
all right, all righti'll trim the bushes in my yard(sheesh, i can take a hint . . . . . . . )
Very cool gazebo.
I was surprised to find out that somebody actually looked at these posts. :o)
be a good stuart of the earth's resources ouch
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
You gotta do something about those self-confidence issues, razz! <G>
pffft
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Took a second look at the website (just kind of skimmed it before). You're right, it almost gets worse the more you look at it. I like the concept, seems very efficient. But it also seems kind of labor intensive, both in assembly and the number of parts. Hollow core planks might be less efficient/more cumbersome, but seems like they'd be easier to make and install. The only direct advantage I could see might be weight reduction. Would like to see how they attach to columns (they claim to require no capitals).Speaking of which: do your buildings ever have second floors? Checked out your website a few weeks ago, very cool. Are second floors supported by the shell (at least on the perimeter), or columns? Are other floors concrete also, or joist/deck? An interesting specialty. How did you get involved with it?
>Speaking of which: do your buildings ever have second floors? Checked out your website a few weeks ago, very cool. Are second floors supported by the shell (at least on the perimeter), or columns? Are other floors concrete also, or joist/deck? An interesting specialty. How did you get involved with it?My own house has 3 stories. One floor is an elevated slab supported by corbels built into the shell, and the other is I-joists supported half by corbels and half by steel columns and beams. Floors can be, and have been, entirely hung from the shell. Any combo of floor structure is possible, and the weights supported can be amazing.My involvement is a story best told with beer. :) Shortest answer is DW and I just liked the aesthetic possibilities and, as I do with all too many things, jumped in with both feet and later thought, "what the hell did I just do?"
"My involvement is a story best told with beer. :)"and the more beer, the better the story
Interesting discussion ;-)The BubbleDeck concept idoes NOT require much labour. Almost everything is made on factory.
They deliver "filigree-slabs": Concrete buttom (2 inch) all the reinforcement and balls. No shuttering is needed.
The filigree elements are placed (10 x 3 m), joints between elements are placed, and normally some additional steel are placed over the columns to give extra strength (support moment) and to reduce/eliminate deflections.
When the concrete is poured, you get a monolithic floor, with biaxial strength, which is the entire idea of the concept - a light, BIAXIAL deck.This is relevant to hollowcore planks, which can span in one direction only, thereby have to be supported by beams transferring the forces to the columns, instead of the BubbleDeck transferring the forces directly from deck to columns without the need for beams.So you save the beams and thereby reducing the building height.
You have high security concerning explosions (no beams and fixed walls to compress the pressure) and earthquakes (both due to weight reduction and the monolithic, biaxial floor).I hope this explain some questions ;-)
Are you Jorgen or Kim? Thanks for coming here and offering this explanation of your product. How'd you find this place...the expression here in the US is, "were your ears burning?" <G> Means you had a feeling that people were talking about you!I'd be interested in some hard numbers...the relative percentages shown in that one chart confused me. How about a floor of a given size, 30x30, 40x40, whatever, and document a slab floor, a bubble deck, and whatever else would make for good comparisons? It'd be interesting to know thickness, support requirements, weight, cost, etc.
I'm Kim (junior). I just checked who had visited the website - and here I am ;-)I really appreciate any comment! The basis of the website is quite old, and when you keep adding new stuff instead of making it all from scratch, the logical line can get lost. But somewhere (...) most information should be avaiable.Next week I'll try to make simple excel-program, where users with a few inputs (load, span and continuity) will have a suggested deck height and amoount of steel.Concerning prices in North America, you have to take contact to our man in Vancouver - he'll be happy to help ;-)
Thanks for the info, Kim. Always keeping an eye out for good floor systems for my clients, and your responses help.
One Bedroom, Single 40 foot Container: 320 sq ft1 to 2 People with 5 person years cool food storagehttp://www.undergroundcontainer.com/
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
http://www.fabprefab.com/fabfiles/containerbayhome.htm
All you have to do now is live on a coast so you won't need to pay exorbitant shipping charges.
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Knited-branches-reinforced earth:http://www.cimec.ro/muzee/muzeu_sat/2expo/transilvania/dumitra/du1.htmThe roof stands on strong wood logs and is covered with straw.In front is a fence, built with a similar technique as the house, butwithout being covered with earth/clay. - this technique is supposed tobe used since neolythic.View Image
View Image
Almost four centuries old tiny wood church:http://www.cimec.ro/muzee/muzeu_sat/2expo/transilvania/dragomiresti/dr.htm
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
View Image
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Thanks for the additional info. I hope i didn't sound derogatory, have just never heard of the system before.I see that it's used mostly in Europe. Are there any applications in North America? Any building permit issues? And does the system compare favorably cost-wise to other concrete systems (precast, cast-in-place, hollow core planks, etc.)?And my biggest question: do i get to play with the leftover bubble balls? :)
The guys at the factories are having a ball.. - So please join... ;-)In North America, the first project was (is) a hospital in Vancouver. Two more projects are already on the move.
It will start in the USA in the end of 2006, when the compulsory firetests are made.
No speciel issues - it acts exactly like a solid slab, also strengthwise, just with less weight.The economic savings can be quite large - up to 5 % of the TOTAL costs.In a recent project on Jersey, it was original planned with hollow core, but changed to BubbleDeck. The total savings were 3 % of the entire costs. It really depends on how you design the construction.
The largest savings are besides the reduction in materials, the building speed, especially the additional works - piping etc.So the potential both with regards to economic, architectural freedom and environmental issues are quite substantial.Enjoy the weekend!
Do you have any sort of span chart?
You can have some approcimate figures textwise. Metric system.Deckheight (mm) Span (m)230 7 - 10
280 8 - 12
340 9 - 14
390 10 - 16
450 11 - 18Both directions. The best effect is obtained when having continueous spans (row of columns or walls), hence being able to benefit from the support moment over the columns (reinforcement in the top of the deck above the columns).I think there is a chart on the website with moments and spans in relation to reinforcement (buttom).Longer spans can be obtained by the use of post-tensioning (prestressing will be avaiable later).I hope this answers your question?
I stumbled across this thread checking my website traffic and found I've been getting visitors from this forum after our DIY house construction website was quoted in a post by razzman.For anyone thinking about building their own Field O' Dreams in DIY fashion, I'd like to mention a few details about building the house I like to call The Garage Mahal.We started out with a piece of land, a driveway, a slab, utilities, a *big* pile of cement blocks and whatever we could manage to buy out of cash flow. We had no experience, no clue what we were getting ourselves into and nothing but our wits and hard work to rely on. Three years later we've moved into an approximately 3,000 sf all-concrete house built around a central courtyard and modeled directly upon the adobe-walled Spanish colonial-era missions in San Antonio. We have added some cutting-edge techniques to this low tech approach by devising a laminated ferrocement roof and inventing some of our materials and tools.We managed to do all this by trial and error, using millennia-old building techniques updated with modern construction materials. Our house is green, largely self-cooling in our hot Texas summers, paid-for and aesthetically pleasing to the senses. Having done volunteer work in Mississippi in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, I am positive my house would not only have remained standing if it had been in Katrina's kill zone but, due to the minimal usage of lumber and drywall, would not have had the crippling mold problems I encountered in so many houses that withstood the 'cane but will have to be torn down. There is a photo on page 108 of our website of a house I worked in that managed to remain standing but the owners were homeless due to the black mold. We're protected against mold, insects, fire, wind, impact and just about everything except the IRS.If a 40 something married couple can manage to pull this off (I was 48 and The Wife was eternally youthful), so can almost anyone unafraid of hard work and a gamble on their own gumption. We couldn't find much info on dry stack block construction (the methodology we used), so we created the website to leave a trail of bread crumbs for other would-be DIY Denizens to follow. We received some very gracious help when doing our research and we're always glad to "pay it forward" by sharing info. Want to do a drive-by? Remove the "DOT" and replace it with a "." in the URL below. I have to do this or my website address will get harvested by the spam bots and I'll get even more urgent business proposals from Nigeria than I already get.www DOT TexasMusicForge DOT com/gimmeshelter DOT htmlBest regards to all,Tio Ed
El Rey de Sweat Equity
Austin, Texas
Greetings Tio Ed, and Welcome to Breaktime.
I am the villainous sort that posted your web address back in post #184 in this thread. Hope by doing so I wasn't the one who stirred the cyber pot and painted a spam bullseye on it for you.
Interesting in that you were involved in helping rebuild from Katrina as there were a number from here on Breaktime that went there to help. Here's the link to an old thread which discussed that. 64062.1
I viewed your site and thought it so interesting what you accomplished. I can delete your address in post # 184 if that will help. Let me know if that is desirable.
Cheers
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Hey Razzman:Thanks for the welcome and your interest in our humble Labor O' Love. Naw, leave the address in the earlier post. I post the location of the website in as many forums as I can and have noticed I get a surge in spam if the URL isn't deconstructed to fool the spambots. When I was desperately seeking some kind of info on dry stack block construction 4 years ago, there was so little available that I got pretty frustrated and decided to put our experience out on the web for others to find. I'd rather take a little bit of spam and hope the info will help another DIY owner/builder deprive a mortgage banker or subdivision developer of another sucker.This looks like a pretty good forum, so I think I'll be checking in pretty regularly. Best regards,Tio Ed
Loafing by the PC instead of working on the roof this morning
Cool beans.
Just to familiarize you with the site a bit, I'll let you know that there is a folder called the 'Woodshed Tavern' which cannot be accessed unless one requires it. Here's a link to an 'ask for access' thread. 66693.1
This is to help keep visitors from being inadvertently clobbered with a wiley fit of verbal political warfare when they come looking for help about their hardwood floor buckling and how much or do I need venting in my roof.
The Tavern is the designated place for all communication outside the building format.
Besides the normal courses of polijive that radiates there one can find family stuff, humor, wannabee humorists, beer recommendations and two guys 'gunner' and 'Sancho' who, well, ...let's just say you've been warned.
Cheers View Image
oh yeah, and that guy cloudhidden, he'll be reading this. He lives in a big concrete igloo.
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Edited 2/13/2006 2:11 pm ET by razzman
"...will help another DIY owner/builder deprive a mortgage banker or subdivision developer of another sucker."
dang but that's good View Image
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Tio Ed
Are you in Austin proper or out in one of the burbs?
Just wondered how you were able to swing that building with the city.
I live down in San Marcos and do all my work in Austin. I've seen some fairy unique homes out in West lakes area, especially out off of Bee Caves and Quarnavaca.
Your place is pretty cool!
Doug
Doug Dawg:I don't even want to contemplate the permitting nightmares of trying to build this house in Travis County, let alone Austin proper. We're out in Lee County and outside any municipality's jurisdiction in the rural part of the county. The only inspection or permit we had to have was for the septic system. Sure, it's an hour drive into Austin for work and play, but we saved ourselves at least $15K, if not more, by building where we don't need to play tag with inspectors and paperwork. Add in the new 20% increase in Travis County's property tax for next year and our commute suddenly isn't looking so bad.Tio Ed
Tio Ed
I agree that the commute to Austin for work is the way to go, I do it myself!
I just couldn't conceive of the idea of building your house in Austin, obviously nether could you.
I do like what you've done.
Doug
Alternative Energy forum
http://www.fieldlines.com/
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Shipping Containers
http://www.shippingcontainernews.com/
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
From another siteNo hubs. No struts. 10 foot diameter, 5/8, 6v Class I icosa dome, made of 7/16 inch plywood. USING TWO DIFFERING SIZED HEXAGONS, (NOT COUNTING THE HOLES).
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Edited 2/28/2006 12:43 am ET by razzman
Thats pretty cool!
I'm thinking of somthing unique to build for my son to go with the sandbox/swingset deal, this may be the ticket.
I'm trying to figure out why the two different sizes of hex's - have to give my math side of the brain some exersize.
Doug
http://www.sover.net/~triorbtl/small_domes.html
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Cool.
I'm in the design stage of a dome kinda/sorta thing for the kids outdoor play area.
Of course the design stage can last until he's 18 but it will be nice when I'm done.
Doug
That hexpent panel dome is an easy design to build as it's pretty much just a couple jigs and a mess of cuts.
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
EASY, yea, thats what I'm looking for.
Here ya go, courtesy of uncledunc, everything ya need to know.
27385.1
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
crazy. I admire the guy's gusto, but he doesn't seem to be thinking about these structures as having more than a couple year lifespan. Know of anyone else doing the plydomes more permanantly?zak
ya, those plydomes have to be the funniest looking domes around and there are a lot of different styles.
I can't recall right now but somewhere some guy built a huge plydome like it seems I remember it was way over a 50ft dia closer to 100ft or something like that which seems huge for those things. Somewhere I have a pic of it. If I find it I'll post it.
Here's some pics of the old prototypes of those plydomes. Never saw one personally. And for kicks a true buckydome in flight.lol
View Image
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Edited 4/1/2006 1:36 am ET by razzman
Found this site of plydomes and the gentleman is still building them.
http://www.sover.net/~triorbtl/cottage_1.htm
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
http://www.everinghamrotatinghouse.com.au/
The Everingham Rotating House is situated approximately 40 kilometres from Wingham NSW,in the hinterland of the Manning Valley on the Nowendoc River, comprising pristine rapids and deep water with mountains rising directly above the river.
Built largely of glass and steel and powered by an electric motor "not much bigger than a washing machine motor", the Everingham Rotating House is a brilliant testimonial to the ingenuity of its owner/builders. It also encapsulates many aspects of ecologically sound building principles, such as optimising on natural light and heat, while rotating 180o to take advantage of sunshine and shade at different times of the day and year.
be a mad thinker cu invented the rotate
half of good living is staying out of bad situations
Why do people do this?
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/icaro_oz/slideshow?.dir=/b47escd&.src=ph&.tok=phMja4EBl_PULM4V
half of good living is staying out of bad situations
http://www.gizmag.com/home/
The process harvests straw, orients the stems so they are all parallel, then compresses and binds it into a continuous length of two inch diameter rigid cable which can be combined into a construction material in several ways.
View ImageView Image
Beware. RFID is coming.
GO: Strawjet - making buildings out of straw
May 30, 2006 Every now and again, a technology comes along that is so momentous that it changes the way we do things from that point forth. Last year we saw the LifeStraw and this year, Strawjet. Strawjet just took out the History Channel’s Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge and we suspect the sudden attention from this respected global medium will help to garner universal support for an ingenious idea. Strawjet is being developed by the Ashland School of Environmental Technology in Oregon. The School is a collaborative learning community dedicated to life-enhancing, technological innovations that serve ecological and humanitarian values worldwide and with the Strawjet project it has done itself proud. Strawjet manufactures straw into a low cost, fully recyclable, structural and insulating building material. Straw is harvested during the grain harvest and converted directly into entire finished wall sections for the construction of homes of any design, from standard homes to rapid assembly shelters for the developing world and disaster relief. Other building materials such as, cement, steel, wood, and glass, are associated with significant environmental costs through to their extraction, manufacture or harvest while straw is often considered a waste product and is continuously renewable and universally available. As a by-product of harvesting food crops it does not place any additional burden on the environment. It offers better insulation than typical brick and mortar construction and is better able to withstand the stresses of an earthquake. It saves resources for building, and provides the farmer with another source of income or the ability to create his own building materials as required. The process harvests straw, orients the stems so they are all parallel, then compresses and binds it into a continuous length of two inch diameter rigid cable which can be combined into a construction material in several ways. Labor costs at the building site are greatly reduced as the company has developed a system to combine the cables into standard panels and hence into completed wall systems in the field. Main diagram explanation: (1) modified combine grain harvester makes cables and harvests grain simultaneously. (2) truck collects cables, cuts them to eight foot lengths, weaves them into a mat and rolls the mat for ease of handling. (3) mat ready for use and a stack of mats. (4) Each pass of laminator adds a layer to composite wall. Layers are pinned and bonded ingeniously. (5) undulating wall section being made. (6) section of wall with the mobile cutter ready to cut it into finished wall sections complete with door and windows (7) which are delivered by truck and assembled. (8 &9). It’s ingenious and the full story is succinctly told here with an image library here. (more...)
Beware. RFID is coming.
OK....this thread just re-appeared on my radar.
4 new of 245.
Does that mean that I've read the previous 241 posts?
Cause if so....I find it hard to believe that I haven't contributed at all to this point.
be there....now I have
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
"The old Quaker Meeting house is almost 300 years old and as my sawzall made its way into the pegged ancient wood, a smell emerged that told me about dried, cracked things. The ancient Quakers sitting in the well worn pocket of their silence on the darkened pine benches were whispering something to me across the years. Something about why I was here, why we're here. Lord but it was hot. I reached in to clear anything out of what was the sill, nothing but the hardened mud, lime and sand mortar, dust and shadows." -- Jer
What the hell!
I believe that's a wart on the nether regions of progress....
Boy, I guess!
Doug
We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measureable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
LOL - I love it!
We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measureable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
excert:
Surrounded by well-manicured shrubs, Victorian porches and wrought- iron patio furniture, Dante Bini's stately house is the last place you would expect to find one of the most innovative architects of the past 40 years.
"I love all architecture, all of it," Bini says defiantly. Though he has lived on and off in the United States for more than 25 years, his thick Italian accent still curls words like smoke, each sentence drifting in unexpected directions toward the next. "This house, this is old. But when it was built, it was of its time." He walks past the pool, his bright orange ascot a focal point against the gray trees and brown hills of St. Helena behind him. In a chocolate-brown leather jacket, slacks and shined leather boots, he looks much more the Mission District hipster on a night out clubbing than a 72-year-old grandfather. "Me, I live today. I want to be the architect of now, of our time."
http://sfgate.com/<!---->cgi-bin/article.<!---->cgi?file=<!---->/c/a/2005/<!---->02/20/CMGU2AUHI8<!---->1.DTL..
AN HONEST MANS PILLOW IS HIS PIECE OF MIND.-Laumonster '06
Edited 8/25/2006 12:19 pm ET by rez
Bini does cool stuff. He's worked for many years on the same kind of shapes that I mess with now, but he follows a different method. While I inflate the form and spray from the inside against it, he lays the form on the ground, puts rebar on it, pours concrete on that, and then inflates the form beneath the wet concrete. I'd love to see it done, be/c it's hard to imagine that working, but obviously it does.
I believe somewhere in that mass of posts here is a pic of his concept in the act.
be but alas my files are haywire
AN HONEST MANS PILLOW IS HIS PIECE OF MIND.-Laumonster '06
Edited 8/25/2006 1:27 pm ET by rez
That'd be something worth seeing in person.
The BiniShelter automated construction method uses 8 pre-fabricated, mass-produced structural components made of any locally available materials. The 8 components (4 walls+4 Roofs) and fixtures can be designed with any number of diverse structural and/or building materials (wood, concrete, steel, reinforced clay, durock, sheetrock, concrete, bricks, bamboo and any combination of the above) depending on locally available and traditionally used materials.
View Image
http://www.binisyst<!---->ems.com/binishel<!---->ter.html
AN HONEST MANS PILLOW IS HIS PIECE OF MIND.-Laumonster '06
Light weight, acrylic modified concrete on stretched fiberglass or cloth membranes can be used for the roofing of habitable shelters, utility buildings, water tanks and tank covers. This shell membrane building technique has unique application in settings where technical expertise is limited or non-existent. Thus its most logical application is in rebuilding war torn villages, in housing in under-developed countries, and for human use in rural, native or jungle environments.
http://www.edc-<!---->cu.org/acrylicro<!---->ofs.htm
AN HONEST MANS PILLOW IS HIS PIECE OF MIND.-Laumonster '06
View Image
View Image
http://bfi.org/node/541
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. A bird sings because it has a song.
Look out, that guys a freaking giant!
Spider-proof biosphere?
;-)DUM SPIRO SPERO: "While I breathe I hope"
The Greenland Ice Sheet Dome Project
Administered through the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, this project was created from a NASA grant in 1990.
The dome covered the drilling equipment and a 100 foot tower (up through the middle of the dome). This was a six year project to drill through the 10,000 foot thick ice cap.
View Image
View Image
Tales from Ice Time
Text by: Richard Monastersky © Science News, Vol 140, 1991
The scene evokes images of surgeons performing a liver transplant in full football gear.
Moving quickly but gingerly, a crew of heavily outfitted drillers coaxes a long icicle from its container and hurries the glistening prize to a dumbwaiter. Room temperature here hovers at a dangerously warm level, only 10 degree C below freezing, and the crew must lower the ice as fast as possible into the safety of a cold snow cellar. They take care not to slip, though. The chunk of frozen water they hold is valued at more than $30,000.
(Continued Below)
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
This particular cylinder of ice represents one small step in a five-year effort to probe some of the hottest issues in climate-change research. The U.S. program, called the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP 2), aims to drill a 3,000-meter-deep hole straight through the thickest part of Greenland's glacial cap while collecting ice samples from every layer. At a nearby site, European scientists are drilling and sampling a similar core. Together, the two frozen records will give researchers their best look yet at how Earth's climate has behaved through some 2,000 centuries - a key to understanding what may lie ahead in an era of global warming.
From the vantage point of the GISP 2 campt, ti's not hard to imagine Earth as it was 18,000 years ago, during the coldest stage of the last ice age.
GISP 2 scientists spend their summers in a flat, frozen world some 650 kilometeres north of the Arctic Circle, near the highest part of the immmense ice sheet blanketing more than 80 percent of Greenland. Beyond the scattered buildings and tents, a white plain stretches in every direction toward unbroken horizons. On an overcast day, sky and snow wear the same dull hue, creating a featureless void that seemes to go on forever.
(Continued Below)
View Image
View Image
This is how Denmark or Detroit must have looked during the lst ice age, when thick glacial sheets covered much of Europe, Asia and North America. In the United States, the glaciers reached as far south as St. Louis in the heartland and Long Island in the east. Though the ice retreated from most parts of the globe by about 10,000 years ago, it still maintains a grip on Antarctica and Greenland.
The ices sheet beneath the GISP 2 camp measures more than 3 kiometers deep - a load so heavy it has warped the bedrock on which it rests. Save for parts
of Antartica, Greenland's summit region has the world's thickest ice, offering scientists a chance to reconstruct the longest climate recore to date.
The Greenland cores will surpass by 40,000 years the world's longest ice record, drilled in the 1980's by a Soviet and French team at the USSR's Vostok base in Antarctica.
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
man...the dialuppers are gonna hate you for that...<g>DUM SPIRO SPERO: "While I breathe I hope"
The Greenland Ice Sheet Dome Project
Administered through the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, this project was created from a NASA grant in 1990.
The dome covered the drilling equipment and a 100 foot tower (up through the middle of the dome). This was a six year project to drill through the 10,000 foot thick ice cap.
Tales from Ice Time
Text by: Richard Monastersky © Science News, Vol 140, 1991
The scene evokes images of surgeons performing a liver transplant in full football gear.
Moving quickly but gingerly, a crew of heavily outfitted drillers coaxes a long icicle from its container and hurries the glistening prize to a dumbwaiter. Room temperature here hovers at a dangerously warm level, only 10 degree C below freezing, and the crew must lower the ice as fast as possible into the safety of a cold snow cellar. They take care not to slip, though. The chunk of frozen water they hold is valued at more than $30,000.
This particular cylinder of ice represents one small step in a five-year effort to probe some of the hottest issues in climate-change research. The U.S. program, called the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP 2), aims to drill a 3,000-meter-deep hole straight through the thickest part of Greenland's glacial cap while collecting ice samples from every layer. At a nearby site, European scientists are drilling and sampling a similar core. Together, the two frozen records will give researchers their best look yet at how Earth's climate has behaved through some 2,000 centuries - a key to understanding what may lie ahead in an era of global warming.
From the vantage point of the GISP 2 campt, ti's not hard to imagine Earth as it was 18,000 years ago, during the coldest stage of the last ice age.
GISP 2 scientists spend their summers in a flat, frozen world some 650 kilometeres north of the Arctic Circle, near the highest part of the immmense ice sheet blanketing more than 80 percent of Greenland. Beyond the scattered buildings and tents, a white plain stretches in every direction toward unbroken horizons. On an overcast day, sky and snow wear the same dull hue, creating a featureless void that seemes to go on forever.
This is how Denmark or Detroit must have looked during the lst ice age, when thick glacial sheets covered much of Europe, Asia and North America. In the United States, the glaciers reached as far south as St. Louis in the heartland and Long Island in the east. Though the ice retreated from most parts of the globe by about 10,000 years ago, it still maintains a grip on Antarctica and Greenland.
The ices sheet beneath the GISP 2 camp measures more than 3 kiometers deep - a load so heavy it has warped the bedrock on which it rests. Save for parts
of Antartica, Greenland's summit region has the world's thickest ice, offering scientists a chance to reconstruct the longest climate recore to date.
The Greenland cores will surpass by 40,000 years the world's longest ice record, drilled in the 1980's by a Soviet and French team at the USSR's Vostok base in Antarctica.
View ImageThe bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
ya, my bad. Wasn't thinking again.
be hate when that happensThe bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
we can hate him anyways...
be just because...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
25 minutes and still down loawding...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Skip to the thread following...
be sorryThe bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
I'm on my less than 1KBS download wireless...
doesen't matter what I try.. it all takes time...
be modern technology sucks...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Nice re-post.
ok, you're outta the corner
try and behave for the rest of the day, willya? <G>DUM SPIRO SPERO: "While I breathe I hope"
I never realized the ice sheets were so deep.
be never short sheeted thereThe bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
be in deep sheets...
DUM SPIRO SPERO: "While I breathe I hope"
Video of: Living in shipping containers: http://media.smh.com.au/?rid=16551&sy=smh&source=google.com%2Fsearch%3Fsourceid%3Dnavclient%26ie%3DUTF-8%26rls%3DHPIB%2CHPIB%3A2005-19%2CHPIB%3Aen%26q%3Dshipping%2Bcontainer%2Bliving&t=7VEH30&player=wm7&rate=441&flash=1&ie=1
Edited 9/19/2006 10:41 pm ET by rez
Superbox
As the advocates of the brief High Tech design movement of the 1980s -and the Eameses 40 years before them- well demonstrated, there is much practical potential in the creative reuse of industrial products in the application of housing.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0119080/stories/2003/02/08/galleryBoxesAndCans.html
Edited 9/19/2006 10:42 pm ET by rez
More shipping containers: Zigloo Domestique
http://www.zigloo.ca/index
rez
I've been saying it for a couple years now, those things are going to catch on and then look out!
What do we got, maybe 5 million of those things sitting around doing nothing.
Course if you had one it'd just be another storage shed!
Doug
Ya, I forget how many are in operation as cargo transport units on the ocean right now but it was a mega number.
110 ton steel house.
http://www.robertbruno.com/
View Image
We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measureable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
I feel a kinship with him...we've both been on Extreme Homes and both been on FHB's back cover. Traded emails once, a bit ago. That's some amazing work he's done. Not quite so easy to mass produce though. :)
http://www.scraphouse.org/Materials
Perhaps what was most intriguing about ScrapHouse was the creative use of previously discarded materials--most of which were destined for the landfill, often unused with the original price tags still affixed.
View Image
Fire Hose WallsThick yellow fire hoses, previously used by the San Francisco Fire Department, covered the walls of an entire room. The hoses ran from floor to ceiling
We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measureable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
That's wild. 110 tons, that's a serious amount of steel. How much of that was in welding rods, I wonder?
Your quote from Forrest goes well with the picture too. That guy should write a book or three.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
I was surprised he mentioned simple tools as a cutting torch.
Thought for sure he'd have a plasma cutter.
We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measureable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
I'll have to read through that.
A skilled hand with a cutting torch can make a very nice cut, and through much thicker steel than a plasma cutter- my torch says it's capable of making a cut through 8" thick mild steel. Haven't tried it yet. It takes a lot of money to get more than 1" capacity in a plasma cutter.
Then again, it doesn't seem like he should be cutting anything that thick.
He's sure got a genius for making odd things fit together in odd ways, and making it all work in the end.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
Source:
University of California - Davis
Date:
September 29, 2006
Improbable 'Buckyegg' Hatched
An egg-shaped fullerene, or "buckyball egg" has been made and characterized by chemists at UC Davis, Virginia Tech and Emory and Henry College, Va. The unexpected discovery opens new possibilities for structures for fullerenes, which could have a wide range of uses.
View ImageBuckyegg. (Graphic Credit: Christine Beavers)
"It was a total surprise," said Christine Beavers, a chemistry graduate student working with Professors Alan Balch and Marilyn Olmstead at UC Davis. Beavers is first author on the paper, published this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Fullerenes, sometimes called "buckyballs," are usually spherical molecules of carbon, named after the futurist R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome. The carbon atoms are arranged in pentagons and hexagons, so their structures can resemble a soccer ball. An important rule -- until now -- is that no two pentagons can touch, but are always surrounded by hexagons.
The "buckyegg" compound was made by collaborating scientists at Virginia Tech, led by Professor Harry Dorn. They heated a mixture of carbon and other ingredients under special conditions to make a mixture of fullerenes, then shipped the products to UC Davis, where Balch's group worked on characterizing their structures.
When Beavers started to map out the structure, she found two pentagons next to each other, making the pointy end of the egg. Initially she thought that the results were a mistake, but she showed the data to Marilyn Olmstead, an expert on X-ray crystallography, and they decided that the results were real. The egg contains a molecule of triterbium nitride inside.
The experiment was actually part of a project to find new, more predictable ways to make fullerenes, Beavers said. The researchers were trying to make fullerenes with atoms of terbium, a metal from the lanthanide series of the periodic table, trapped inside. Metals similar to terbium are used as contrast agents for some medical scanning procedures. By putting these metals inside fullerenes, the researchers hope to make compounds that could be both medically useful and well-tolerated in the body.
The other authors on the research paper are Tianming Zuo and Kim Harich at Virginia Tech and James Duchamp at Emory and Henry College. Funding was provided by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measureable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
http://www.protondome.com/index.htm
WELCOME TO PROTON DOMEThe design of your new Proton Dome is based on a twelve sided mathematical figire called a Dodecagon - (doe-decka-gon). All of its sides are equal, and each side is parallel to the opposite side. We have used this shape for the walls to give you a feeling of space not found in conventional buildings. For instance, the living and dining areas of the Proton Dome have a combined wall space of thirty feet on the outside walls. The kitchen has twenty feet, and the master bedroom, thirty feet.
We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measureable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
Remember back when FHB use to put stuff like this on their backcovers?
View Image
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
Yup. I was still subscribing. That was a great house. Did you notice the claimed construction cost? Amazing.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Here's the backcover from 35.
What was it back then, they had more stuff of artistic merit mixed in with technical or what?
View Image
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
Edited 10/9/2006 12:42 pm ET by rez
Love it. 35 your earliest? #1 backcover is building an igloo. It also has an article on solo timber-raising that really got my juices flowing. I've since done it. #2 had a cordwood masonry sauna with a green roof. #3 had a redwood turret. #4 was that Texas steel house. #5 was a concrete log cabin. #6 was an incredible cast-in-place concrete castle started in 1908....
Yup, I was charter, based on excellent FineWoodworking experience. Easy decision. And have a bunch of early Taunton books, even a couple of out-of-print ones. Several, author autographed.
Your assessment is correct. Mass-marketing homogenization isn't inspiring- or educating. One old front cover that changed my life was a buried house near SF, a Jersey Devil accomplishment http://www.jerseydevildesignbuild.com/hill.htm. Got to know one of the stone masons here.
I was excited to finally get HGTV from satellite... until I got it. What a disappointment.
Same deal.
I am, however, appreciative of this forum. Which I'd read about for several years before we got internet. Their success, which I helped in my own small ways (including patronage of their advertisers and advising them as such), wasn't wasted.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I have the collection from #1 up to around #152.
I stopped the subscription right before the infamous #153 with the first print run proving that Lowes owns Taunton, that IMERC refuses to sell to me for any amount of money.
Here's the pic off that beautiful front cover of #35 for the lurkers...View Image
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
I also have all of the design, house and furitures SE's...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
You gotta tell me more about that Berkeley fish house. DW and I rode our bikes by it the other day, it's not far from here. We stopped, said WTF?, and didn't pursue it. Great it might be. Not real pretty though. Not that prettiness is so important, especially in the context of this thread.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
Taken From HGTV...
Swamp Creature HouseWe are now in Berkeley, California. Architect Eugene Tsui designed this home for his parents about nine years ago. The house has a tail and fins but it's not a fish, it's a Tardigrade. The Tardigrade is a microscopic creature that lives in swamps. The Tartigrade is nearly indestructable--you can crush it, freeze it, boil it and it survives. He modeled the house after the creature to protect the house from earthquakes, fires and floods.
The fins act as rain dissipaters. The house has it's own passive solar radiance system because of the black air tubes that are permanently sealed in the concrete roof. On the south side of the house is a eyeball window that's not just decorative but acts as a functional passive soar reflector that brings heat and light into the house. The house also repels fire because of the surface texture of the cement coating--it's bumpy.
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
Ummm, yeah, Tardigrades. knew that looked familiar.
By the way, how does a bumpy textured cement coating repel fire better than a smooth cement coating.
I'll have to remember my camera someday and take a few pics of other interesting Berkeley homes. Not much like the tardigrade house, but some nice and unusual houses in these parts.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
MICRO DWELLINGS is a system for making low cost dwellings of variable sizes for any number of persons.It consists of movable housing modules that can form different configurations on land, on water and under water. The system allows for a diversity of materials as well as changes and adaptations.
View Image
http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/MICRO_DWELLINGS/micro_dwellings.html
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
"Having to support a family of eight, Mr. Phiri turned to the only two things he had, a three hectare family landholding and the Bible. He didn't use the Bible only for spiritual guidance or inspiration, he also used it as a gardening manual. Reading Genesis, he saw that everything Adam and Eve needed was provided by the Garden of Eden. 'So,' thought Mr. Phiri, 'I must create my own Garden of Eden.' Yet he also realized that Adam and Eve had the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in their region, while he didn't have even an ephemeral creek. 'So,' he thought, 'I must also create my own rivers.' He has done both."
View Image
http://ag.arizona.edu/OALS/ALN/aln46/lancaster.html
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
A 10-minute video showing the construction of a Dante Bini shell compound as a shopping mall: http://www.binisystems.com/spacecity.html
wow, how many of those are here stateside?
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
None built with his method. Built with the method I'm most familiar with, there aren't any malls, but there are a bunch of industrial buildings, auditorium/gymnasiums, schools, and, of course, residences by the hundreds. The fascinating part of Bini's method is the use of springs as rebar guides. It's be interesting to do a side-by-side of his method vs the shotcrete method.
So, you book yer flight to downunder yet?
be driving an outback
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
When I head down under, it'll be for the beaches, and the native wildlife one finds on the beaches. I love nature, dontcha know!?!
Octa Hale 20 is 320 sqft interior with an optional 9ft porch roof with columns and railings which cover a 6ft wrap around deck area adding 510 sqft. The deck can be used for lounging, storage, an outdoor bathroom or extra living area if screened in.The interior has warm tropical décor and is designed to be a complete studio home with a living area, bed, kitchen, closet, and bathroom. The queen size bed is a couch by day and faces toward the sliding glass door. Designed for a full kitchen including stove, refrigerator, counter and sink. The bathroom has a vanity, sink, toilet, and shower. An optional skylight in the roof peak, which brightens the interior with natural light. A premier vacation rental cottage and an excellent guest cottage, primary dwelling or yoga room.
Modular Octa Hales. Octa Hales can be attached to each other in a row or a triangle with an interior courtyard or living area with a roof. Two attached octagons can be designed with the kitchen and living area in one octagon and the bathroom and bedroom in the other. Three attached octagons can be designed with kitchen and bathroom in one, living area in the second, and master bedroom and bathroom in the third. Attached octagons can the same size or a combination of different sizes: 20, 16 or 12. It is also possible to attach a 10 ft square Pod Hale to an Octa Hale.
For insulated homes for hot and cold climates, the customer determines R-Values required and chooses from insulation options. __._,_.___
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin Laminate is just a picture of hardwood printed on countertop for your floor.We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measurable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
Some interesting sales sites...
http://www.bendshire.com/
http://www.daviscaves.com/index.shtml
Edited 10/15/2006 1:28 pm ET by rez
And a visit to TinyTown...
A tiny house that can be lived in and includes heat, water and electricity, might be the size of a guest cottage in a vintage motor court. To design such a dwelling requires the utmost in efficiency and planning and begs the question, “How small a space could you live in and be satisfied?” (Henry David Thoreau wrote a book about it: “Walden Pond”)
http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/houses.htm#roof
http://www.tinyhouses.net/
http://www.discoverys.com/Tiny%20Texas%20Houses.htm
when in doubt add garlic
Edited 10/19/2006 10:07 pm ET by rez
I can't believe they're building a "Shire" development in Bend, Oregon. Must have changed since the last time I've been through there. Gag worthy, to me- the synthesis of old english nostalgia, american subdivision, and profit driven development.
It is interesting that they're making fake thatch roofs though. Who would have thought that the market for those would be in Bend?zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
Strawbales aye?
Heard of them and read some but never visited any up front, close and personal...
http://www.greenbuilder.com/sbat/2001_Home_Tour/when in doubt add garlic
Here's a couple pictures of a friend's strawbale, and my lovely wife stuccoing said strawbale. It's a very nice house, and it's in a good climate for strawbale: dry, fairly windy, and lots of high quality straw nearby.
View Image
Gary, the builder, says that it's important to find successful farmers to buy straw from. They've got the newer balers that make tighter bales, and better homes. This is his third or fourth SB house.
zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
Edited 10/21/2006 1:10 pm by zak
Look at that cool door!
A number of years ago in NewEngland I had the opportunity of hiring on to a strawbale house under construction and have regreeted not doing it ever since.
In addition to the kilns have you ever built a Russian fireplace aka masonary heaters?
be or is it masonary heaters also known as a Russian fireplace?
when in doubt add garlic
Edited 10/21/2006 1:38 pm ET by rez
I haven't, but Gary (he's raking the scratch coat behind my wife there in the picture) has. He was my landlord for about a year once, and I would often go over to his house (20 feet away) for dinner or some such.
They had a masonry stove that he built, and in the winter they would fire it up once a day, for 20 or 30 minutes. It would be smoky for 3 or 4 minutes, then burn nice and clean. It was the only heat they used, and they often had the door open on winter days to cool the house off. It's a nice, radiant heat.
I was looking at an underfloor masonry stove in an old FHB the other day, that looked pretty great too.
Be storing heat.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
http://www.twistedroad.com/index.htm
Copied from above link...
...137 Twisted Road is a dream I’ve been living since January 1998. I’d spent the previous few years of my life looking for ways to live more simply and retire early from the rat race. I started looking for a way to build my own home, and quickly got interested in natural building methods, as many of them are pretty low tech.
Edited 10/24/2006 11:08 pm ET by rez
Over 200 Boeing 727 and 737 fuselages are stacked in a north-south slant in relation to sun exposure for energy efficiency. Two shifts in the direction of the main axis of the fuselages generate two large open spaces within the stack.
http://www.noticiasarquitectura.info/especiales/biblio-jalisco-lot-ek.htmwhen in doubt add garlic
Hey rez, yesterday I saw a show on Discovery Channel about a mega-project being imagined for Tokyo Harbor--a pyramid 1 km high with suspended skyscrapers. One person they brought in to engineer the raising of the pyramid was....................Dante Bini! It was cool to see and hear him. They showed video of his dome raisings, which was also cool.
Is there a good chance that it is actually going to be done and was there a timeline mentioned?when in doubt add garlic
It sounded pretty unlikely...ya never know though.
Seattle, reclaimed lumber home — The original house on Jim Dow's site was built in the early 1900s, complete with the area's first home swimming pool. Three years ago the Seattle contractor built his own 6,000 square foot home on the two acres of land, working to incorporate some trees that are more than a century old into the landscape. Inside, Dow used reclaimed lumber for ceilings and walls.
View Imagewhen in doubt add garlic
View Imagewhen in doubt add garlic
CHK™ CONTAINER HOME KIT / LOT-EK (Ada Tolla, Giuseppe Lignano & Keisuke Nibe)
CHK™, Container Home Kit, combines multiple shipping containers to build modern, intelligent and affordable homes. 40-foot-long (13.00m) shipping containers are joined and stacked to create configurations that vary in size approximately from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet (90m2 to 270m2)
Each container is transformed cutting sections of its corrugated metal walls. Joining the containers side by side, the cut-out layout allows for horizontal circulation expanding, at the same time, the width of the container to generate larger living spaces. Double height living rooms are created for the CHK™ loft model, for a more open layout. Incrementing the amount of containers allows the house to expand from a 1 bedroom to a 2, 3, and 4 bedrooms home.
The landscaping around the houses uses additional containers to configure a swimming pool, a pool house/tool shed and a car port.
CHK™ houses can be disassembled and reassembled elsewhere.
View Imagewhen in doubt add garlic
View Image
when in doubt add garlic
Edited 11/3/2006 6:26 pm ET by rez
Singapore has a new business opportunity – food production from its residential and commercial rooftops. It is an opportunity likely to open up to every city in the world.
http://www.greenroofs.com/archives/gf_nov-dec05.htmwhen in doubt add garlic
Greenery seems to be taking over the roof of one building in lower Manhattan.
View Imagewhen in doubt add garlic
That place is 2 blocks from my place, you almost walked by it last summer.
I wouldn't know. We were beatin feet too fast. Couldn't even stop long enough to get a bag of peanuts to hold me over without losing you guys in the crowd. Roar!
View Imagewhen in doubt add garlic
Sure would be a lot of work getting the riding mower up and down there, or maybe they have goats...
The Dancing House is considered as one of the more real controversial buildings in Prague.
The robotic appearance of the Bank of Asia is a famous building in Bangkok. It was built in 1985.View Image
If you saw this picture for the first time, you'd probably thought that it was hit by a massive earthquake. But it wasn't. In true fashion of the Ripley Legacy, it was built to reflect the odd 1812 earthquake that measured 8.0.
This somewhat modernized building was actually built between 1971 and 1974. It's unique design gives the Wilson Hall a great sense of structure, and a prominent landmark for the skyline. The building provides laboratories, offices, and supports space for 1500 scientists.The Wilson Hall
This bizarre house really doesn't have an official name, but it does have a 135 degree angle. Unfortunately, the only info about this house is that it was built in China or Japan.
Don't know what to say about this.
http://www.airplanehomes.com/pictures.htmlView Image
.
should be pretty easy to move around to fit the need..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
I looked into it. Driveway's insufficient. Still thinking about a boat.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
well, let's continue on then...
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
Perhaps this is what one needs to eat before receiving these dream designs at sleep.
.
DW almost got me to agree to accompany her to Orlando for the PGA show- to see pic11. Then they quit staying at the Peabody...
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Hmmm... "continue on"... is that the opposite of continue off? And when you click "apply", the next button only says "continue". Which way is it going?
Edited 11/12/2006 10:23 am ET by VaTom
Edited 11/12/2006 10:25 am ET by VaTom
The link wasn't working when I went back for the description of those pics so I couldn't post the locations of the buildings.
But got this one...
View Image
The Millau viaduct is part of the new E11 Expressway in the South of France, connecting Paris, France and Barcelona, Spain.
It features the highest bridge piers ever constructed. The tallest is 240 meters (that's 787.4 feet!!!) and the overall height will
be an impressive 336 meters (1102.36 feet!!!), making this the highest bridge in the world.well, let's play it again then, sam.
That bridge is cool but you better not have height-a-phobia!
Doug
Ya,
be keeping your eyes on the road and your hands upon the whe-elwell, let's play it again then, sam.
I need a larger monitor. And that's as close as I'm getting to that thing.
My vote goes to Simon Rodia's solo work in Watts. Take a peek at the site, the following pic doesn't do justice. http://www.trywatts.com/towers.htmPAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I need a larger monitor.
ya gotta scrollll, baby, scrollllscroll, baby, scroll.scroll, baby, scrolllet it scro-ollall night long...oh beloved garlic live forever
Has this made it on here yet? Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, a temple in Barcelona?
View Image
View Image
Only the first parts of it were finished in Gaudi's lifetime. It's still under construction.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
Man, someone has had time on their hands building that.The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. R. Buckminster Fuller
Birth of a Hexdome...
http://www.dtbcomputers.com/2006/index2.htm
View ImageThe end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. R. Buckminster Fuller
http://usa.archiseek.com/minnesota/minneapolis/Weisman_Art_Museum.htmlView Image
Edited 11/15/2006 12:10 am by Shoeman
Edited 11/15/2006 12:11 am by Shoeman
'We figured we would dress it up since we had to have the expansion joints running across the room.'
http://www.mountainviewdome.com/HouseInterior7.htmThe end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. R. Buckminster Fuller
You know that that house is my first commission? The owners are neat people and they did the most meticulous work. Also kept the neatest job site I've ever seen. He's a retired EE...draw your own connection. :) Vietnam vet, also, involved with the MIA work.
Look at the detail work they did:
View Image
whoa, guess so.
What kind of wood was used in that rounded upper kitchen cabinet?
be a small worldThe end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. R. Buckminster Fuller
Don't remember. Mfg was KitchenCraft, if I recall. Picked them be/c they had the curved front as a standard component.
What type of wood are these cabinets?
thanks
View ImageThe end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. R. Buckminster Fuller
hickory
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Looks a bit like "rustic alder" in their guide: http://www.kitchencraft.com/wood_species_rustic_alder.aspxEdit: but it could be hickory...who am I to cross Marty!
Edited 11/15/2006 9:37 pm ET by CloudHidden
It appears to be from some sort of tree.
http://www.petedraganic.com/
hard to tell -
closed grain -
could be maple - poplar - alder - aspen -
"there's enough for everyone"
rez
If that wood isnt alder slap some butter on it and I'll eat it!
Doug
The dream of being a builder and a fascination with garbage dump discoveries were the seeds that took root and became a life’s work for Dan Phillips.
http://www.cleanhouston.org/heros/phillips.htmThe end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. R. Buckminster Fuller
The Phoenix Commotion is committed to reducing the landfill waste-stream by diverting usable building materials into the construction of low-income housing, with an unskilled, minimum-wage labor force.
http://www.phoenixcommotion.com/mission.html
http://www.brigidsplace.org/Paradigm/Brigids-Paradigm.asp
The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. R. Buckminster Fuller
Edited 11/17/2006 12:33 am ET by rez
AASW Mission Statement
To champion earth construction of yesterday, today and tomorrow
Purpose
To be a voice within the earth building community
Goals
To share knowledge about earthen construction
To participate with other earth construction organizations
Strategies
To host an annual conference and membership meeting
To publish the proceedings of the annual conference
http://www.adobeasw.com/
Susan Lathrop and Kim Rylander, known in the village as Suchi and Kimchi, are hosting me and my guide, Earthaven resident Greg Geis, as I try to figure out how a bunch of suburbanites who've fled mainstream America are able to live in the boondocks half an hour by car from the nearest small town, without electrical lines or water mains or flush toilets or streetlights or microwave ovens or washing machines or home entertainment systems or electric garage door openers or fake-log fireplaces operated by remote control or any of the other things that most people consider essential to survival.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111400979.html?referrer=emailarticle
Here's a cozy place: http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htmPAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Not bad at all.
View Image
View Image
There's no shortage of old electric water heaters in most of this country's landfills and dumps. Contemplate all the groovy woodburners and you'll be able to make from one morning's haul of junked water heater tanks. Let the sparks fly converting an old water heater into a stove. Drawing shows general details of ""water heater tank to wood-burning stove"" conversion.
View Image
Look up in the heart of Reading town centre and you might just see a mini wind turbine peeking over the top of a roof looking back at you.
Behind central Reading's only renewable energy installation lies the RISC edible roof garden; a forest garden complete with over 120 species of edible and medicinal trees, shrubs, vines and plants from around the globe.
http://www.risc.org.uk/garden/
I had one of those water heater stoves once. Made out of a stubby under-counter type tank - we were in a mobile home and it was the only thing that would fit. It would hold a fire for a full day if you damped it down, and blast you out the back side of the place with the slightest provocation. I love recycling!
That's a teletubbie town.
View Image
Now theres an idea for all those doors you've got.
Those doors are too heavy.
Wish I'd been around to get some metal frames when they demo'd the place.
Thats where Tumus the fawn lives in Narnia.
I think I saw a documentary on that bridge. Is that the one where they built the roadway on the ground and "pushed" it across the piers? that was really cool.
Don't know much about it but it caught my eye.
That is one mean bridge.
View Image
To keep your table clean of any leftover, one can either adopt the radical Katazukue way or turn to worms, sowbugs and bacteria for a more sustainable solution.
A wriggling and living ecosystem is invited to Amy Young's Digestive Table. After users have discarded food leftovers and shredded paper into the portal at the top, the bacteria and sowbugs begin breaking down the waste and the worms join in to further digest it into a compost that sprinkles out of the bottom of the bag that hangs beneath the table. This compost is used as a fertilizer for plants, such as those at the base of the table.
Seeing worms is difficult since the creatures are harmed by white light. They do not mind infra-red, but humans cannot see in that frequency. Therefore, Young has made a cross-section of the activity inside the compost visible using an IR security camera connected to an LCD screen built into the table. On the screen (image below), viewers can see the live movements of the worms and sowbugs inside.
The hand-made composting bag is based on a "flow-through" vermicomposting system, designed to make harvesting the worm castings much easier. Informative how-to handout, written by Amy Stewart can be downloaded here.
The wood is Forest Stewardship Council Certified oak plywood. They have a policy to "agressively phase out the purchase of wood products from endangered forests". In an effort to be ecological and to reference the cycle of food reprocessing, the wood was stained with a homemade concoction of boiled red cabbage, mixed with a little worm compost tea and alum.
heh heh seeyou invented Katazukue
Edited 12/3/2006 1:23 pm ET by rez
An Australian invention with global health and environmental benefits has been named Invention of the Year by ABC TV's The New Inventors.
Developed by Melbourne motor and mechanical engineer Chris Bosua, the Exhausted Air Recycling System (EARS) converts wasted air from compressors back into energy.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=166969
Edited 12/3/2006 1:37 pm ET by rez
Interesting. I'd like to see some details on how it works and if it can be retrofitted easily.
Red bus revamp for green living
Each bus is designed to be environmentally friendlyFalling asleep on the bus is about to become easier as a new scheme providing short-term housing aboard double deckers is to be launched.
Eight buses have been refitted with kitchens, bathrooms and living space.
The buses, with solar panels and recycling bins, will be lent to a London homeless charity over Christmas.
Double Decker Living, a new London company, aims to provide alternative housing for the homeless and key workers such as NHS staff on call.
The idea for the bus, which can house up to five people, was prompted by the phasing out of the Routemaster, the distinctive hop-on, hop-off red London bus.
Life skills
"The double decker is such an iconic London image, we wanted to see what we could do with it," said Jason Hart of Double Decker Living.
"Everyone I speak to laughs because it sounds so strange but once they see it for themselves, they become very enthusiastic about the idea."
For the first stage of the project - to be launched on 19 December - Leyland Olympian double deckers are being used, but plans are under way for a Routemaster version.
Centrepoint charity for young homeless people will use the buses as teaching venues for life skills classes, covering topics such as cooking and interview preparation.
Institute of Technology alumni and students led 8,000 Minnesota schoolchildren in creating a geodesic globe 1993
1620 panels [8-frequency icosa?] 42-foot diameter
damn, am I fat!
Edited 12/9/2006 3:05 pm ET by rez
The bridge (or should it be called tunnel) goes under water to allow movement of ships . In order for ships to pass, this bridge is half under the water. You drive down in the water and then come out on the other side. Truly a marvelous piece of engineering!? This bridge is between Sweden and Denmark Picture taken from the side of Sweden .
damn, am I fat!
The one down the river here opened April 15, 1964. 17.6 miles long connecting Virginia and Virginia. http://www.cbbt.com/history.html
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Tom
I read through that link that you provided but I couldnt see anywhere that mentioned how deep, or should I say, how far under water is that tunnel?
I dont know squat about ships so I dont know how much of them stick below the surface of the water that they are sailing in.
None the less, its cool!
Doug
Yup, it's something to drive, and only $200M, a lot of money in 1960. This is tidewater, depth will change. There's a major naval facility using this access. I know as much as you do about ships. They mention water depth of the route as 25-100'. With the tunnels a mile long, they can get deep without much slope.
There's another under-channel tunnel in the area, but nowhere near that 17 mile total length. The total access elevation change, end to end, is only 6". Pretty flat there.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Edited 12/11/2006 10:57 pm ET by VaTom
One of the world's VERY FIRST inflatable churches is here to allow couples to get married wherever their hearts desire. The complete structure will comprise of two sections; The house, 5m in width (external) with frontal facade, 7m highand 6.5m wide (Approx). The tower will be 5x5m base and 12m in height (Approx) Walls are to be 0.6m thick. (Approx.) The attention to detail is heavenly complete with plastic "stained glass" windows and airbrush artwork which replicates the traditional church. Inside it has an inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and a gold cross. Even the doors are flanked by air-filled angels. The church can be built in 2 hours and
dis-assembled in less than one.Marry anywhere !!! even renewing your vows if you're already married.
Now we can bring the church to the bride rather than the other way around. It can be set up anywhere, from your garden to Malibu beach, it's up to you. No problem with "high heels."
The Inflatable Church is Registered in the Guinness World Records 2004 for being the world's largest Inflatable church in the world.
View Image
View Image
damn, am I fat!
Call for Papers and Conference AnnouncementAdobeUSA 2007May 18, 19 and 20, 2007The 4th Adobe Conference of the Adobe Association of the Southwest: AdobeUSA 2007 will take place May 18, 19 and 20, 2007 in El Rito, New Mexico on the campus of co-sponsor Northern New Mexico Community College in Cutting Hall Auditorium. It adjoins the two-story South Dorm and Cafeteria forming a stately adobe complex. A tour of area adobe structures will take place Monday, May 21, 2007.Information on the Association and the previous conferences can be found at: http://www.adobeasw .com/Call for Papers Schedule:December 15 (Extended to Dec 22), 2006: Abstracts due. One page, 8-1/2 x11, maximumJanuary 5, 2007: Notification of acceptanceFebruary 23, 2007: Full paper due. (7-page maximum including graphics)Presenters will have 20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes to answer questions. Time limits will be carefully monitored. The host institution can handle 2x2 slides in Carousels, digital presentation files, DVD, VHS and overheads.Submit abstracts to:Quentin Wilson, Speakers CommitteePO Box 426, El Rito, NM 87530505-581-4130 faxor qwilson@mail. nnmc.edu as an attachment in .txt, .doc (msword) or .pdf format or email body or printed on paper.Final papers for publication consideration must be in .pdf or .doc formats. Conference Languages: English and SpanishTopics of special interest are:Affordable adobe constructionThermal properties of earthen materialsPhysical properties of earthen materials including seismic considerationsHistorical buildings of noteHistorical builders, developers, architects or designers worldwideNew projects: architecture, adobe art and designAdobe educationManufacture and supply of adobe and related construction materials
damn, am I fat!
View Image
Zurich Insurance and Arup Associates just completed an interesting study about what the house of the future migh look like. They suggest that "By around 2080 our relationship with our home might have changed beyond all recognition" Although this rendering of a fairly traditional streetform with two cars in the driveway is pretty recognizable.
Some of the ideas are obvious; some are interesting and others are wacky- "Our homes could even move with us. Walls, rooms and even floors could be added or taken away to accommodate three generations as we live longer and land becomes an even more premium commodity." The others are listed below the fold. I suspect that the vision of life in the suburbs in 74 years will be not nearly so bucolic. You can download the whole PDF from ::Arup
•The end of the commute: Technology leaps could create a commute-free society as more people work from home. The future may also include echoes from the past; local communities, shops, services and even our relationship with our neighbours could play a far greater part in our daily lives.
•Houses on stilts: In areas particularly at risk of flooding, houses built on stilts could become a common sight.
•Self heating: Solar panels, gas-filled triple-glazed windows and intelligent insulation, which can automatically adjust to the external temperature to control the heat indoors, could all be standard fittings and fixtures.
•Self cooling: To cope with peak summer temperatures that might regularly reach seven degrees higher than today, energy-hungry air conditioning units will be replaced by pipes carrying cool, recycled water built into, and around, ceilings and beams. Solar shades and houses built with extended overhangs would also help beat the heat. As temperatures regularly soar to 35oC and above, opening windows could become less effective during the heat of the day and patterns used in Mediterranean climates might become more common.
•Energy self sufficient: The UK might be growing its own energy thanks to greater use of bio-fuels from plants, such as rapeseed. Renewable energy sources could be a necessity, as energy generation becomes a community activity with smaller, local substations supplied with energy generated by family wind turbines and solar panels.
•Water independent: Today's bathrooms could represent relics of a more indulgent age as water could become a luxury the planet can't afford to waste. The priority will be saving water and our homes will be tailor-made to re-use and recycle water. In the house of the future the entire water used and waste produced could be re-used and recycled.
•Plug in cars: As our homes become power sources in their own right, at night we could find ourselves putting out the cat and plugging in the car to charge up its batteries at the same time.
•Death of DIY: The more hi-tech the house becomes, with solar panels, wind-turbines and geothermal energy systems, the less able we might become in DIY-ing our house repairs. Increased modularity will make it easier for us to adapt to our homes.
•Roof gardens: The vista of pitched roofs spanning suburbia could disappear to be replaced by either flat roofs covered with gardens of gravel or vegetation to aid water gathering and help minimise flood damage, or inverted pitched roofs to maximise rainwater harvesting.
•Flora and fauna: As regular droughts and water shortages grip the nation, our gardens could take on a new look with thirsty, delicate plants such as roses and hydrangeas supplanted by olive trees and cacti.
http://www.quittintime.com/
damn, am I fat!
NationGroup's rejection of consumerism creates converts By Carolyn Jones
San Francisco Chronicle Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.28.2006advertisement
SAN FRANCISCO — For Shawn Rosenmoss, the deal-breaker was a drill bit. John Perry's worst temptation was a plumber's snake for his clogged drain. Sarah Pelmas and Matt Eddy succumbed to the siren song of new white paint. But aside from the occasional hardware crises, the Compact — an ever-growing group who have vowed not to buy anything new except food, medicine and underwear — is going strong on its first anniversary. The Compact originated in December 2005 at a San Francisco dinner party, where guests decided to take recycling one step further and go for a year without new purchases. Consumerism, they said, is destroying the world and most of us already own far more than we need. They called themselves the Compact as a semi-joking reference to the solemn commitment of the Mayflower pilgrims, but the concept is being taken quite seriously and has quickly spread. They've been featured in newspapers across the United States and Europe and on the "Today" show, "Good Morning America," "CBS Evening News," TV news in China and Poland, and countless shock-jock radio programs.
They were offered book contracts and at least two TV reality shows, all of which they turned down because it seemed contrary to the Compact principles. Almost 3,000 people from six continents have joined the Compact group on Yahoo, and chapters have sprung up around the globe from Alabama to New Zealand. "It's been staggering," said Compact co-founder John Perry, who works in communications at a Silicon Valley technology company. "We never set out to start a movement or be holier-than- thou models of righteous behavior, but it's been very gratifying to see the impact." Participants say the Compact has been a rewarding experience. Compacters are allowed to buy secondhand items and are encouraged to borrow and reuse whatever possible. Kids' birthday parties? That's easy. Rosenmoss lets her daughters, who are not bound by the compact, spend their allowance money on new gifts for friends, or encourages them to make something. Pelmas, a high school administrator, and Eddy, a high school science teacher, bought a house in 2006 and managed extensive renovations with only one trip to the hardware store. They needed white paint for their ceilings. It's easy to find surplus paint in colors, which they used for the walls, but impossible to find surplus white paint.
Rosenmoss broke the Compact only twice, when she needed a drill bit and when she needed sleeping bags for her kids. "I looked for used sleeping bags, but frankly the idea was so gross I just couldn't do it," said Rosenmoss, an engineer for the city of San Francisco. "It was like buying used underwear. So I gave myself a reprieve." But Perry has not veered once from the Compact rules. His bathroom sink has been plugged for months, and it'll stay that way until he finds a drain snake at Thrift Town. Overall, the year of anti-consumerism has been unexpectedly rewarding, they said. Most of the original Compacters planned to renew their vow for 2007, but Pelmas and Eddy said they'd had enough — they're headed to Crate and Barrel on Jan. 1.
http://www.quittintime.com/
" G@D DAMN IT RICH! CAN YOU PLEASE SHUT the F UP!" Riverfest 2005
View Image
HAPPY NEW YEAR Reichstag dome in Germany
http://www.quittintime.com/
" G@D DAMN IT RICH! CAN YOU PLEASE SHUT the F UP!" Riverfest 2005
I missed this thread, I had a project in arch school using containers for housing. My stuff was even cooler than that, though I love the pool.
close....
probably closer to twilight zone...Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Actually the guy made those triangular panels out of a newsprint/cement mixture himself there in his yard and put it on a conduit frame with the idear of economy.
be a pioneer
We can imagine something that only exists in our heads, in a form that has no measureable, tangible reality, and make it actually occur in the real world. Where there was nothing, now there is something.Forrest - makin' magic every day
ohhhhhhhh eeeeeee I feel my ears growing all pointy
my fingers are spreading apart-- i thinki, iamm gonna,
do the Vulcan mind meld with the thing.
Hey, I caught a program on Discovery or Nat Geo or sumptim last night. A guy in Vancouver was building Spheres that hang from trees ... I can't remember his name tho', I was exhausted and half a sleep.
Maybe it'll repeat...pretty cool what he was up to. 10' diameter laminated wood ( later he started using fiberglass) hoisted up in the trees...TV, heat, microwave, sleeps 6. Spiral stairs for acess. I thunk of you imeadiatly.
Tom Caughlin or similar..aerosphere ?
be I wish I had a memory
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Save a few posts, fill in your Profile, we can help!
View Image
http://sprawlcity.com/
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
...But recent rediscoveries in the field of cement technology hold great promise to expand the current, limited shortlist of bio-compatible appropriate building materials. By combining magnesium oxide with selected nitrates and rock powders, bonding cements can be created that can bond almost any dissimilar materials together. That means almost any imaginable recycled or renewable local material can be bonded to almost anything else to form a climate balanced insulative thermal mass building material.
http://www.geoswan.com/
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Calcium silicate block plantsTechnical consulting on and support for the erection of new calcium silicate block plants or the reengineering of already existing plants is a core competence of Xella Plant Engineering GmbH.
View Image
View Imagehttp://www.hebel.com/html/com/en/ytong_products.php
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
From a site, "In the year 2000, I started on the journey of my dream house. A straw bale dream house that would be ecologically sound, evironmentally friendly, and a place to finally call home. This is the story of the building of that house. The story of what happens when you trust someone you should not. The story of bad decisions, poor quality work, and lack of accountability. The story of what it takes to salvage what was once thought unsalvagable."
http://pasostrawbale.blogspot.com/
Edited 2/4/2006 1:10 am ET by shod
Descartes' law of closure deficit
http://www.neubert.net/DESCarte.html
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
Concrete canvas...a building in a bag: http://www.concretecanvas.org.uk/Also, http://frappr.com/itsa
Isn't the concretecanvas site a nice design? Everything right there and easy to manuever in.
Nice layout to mimic.
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
These Houses Can Take a Lickin'View Image
...Another option may come from a region that, like New Orleans, is below sea level. In the Netherlands, architects are experimenting with floating homes.
Adri van Ooijen, owner of a set of floating homes built in a flood zone in the Netherlands, said he offers some as vacation rentals. When it floods, he says, the buildings are able to rise more than 13 feet.
Van Ooijen's floating homes were built by the construction firm Dura Vermeer, which is also designing an entire floating city near Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. The company has already built a floating greenhouse, which some say could reinvent the country's essential flower industry.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70105-0.html
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
"Living In Paper is a detailed, up-to-date source of information about using waste paper for affordable, sustainable housing."
http://www.livinginpaper.com./
'Nemo me impune lacesset'No one will provoke me with impunity
I was in Amsterdam last summer and had a meeting on a high floor in a new office building. I looked out the window and I could see a big square pool of water with a small barge in it. It turned out that when they were driving piles for a new building, it was quicker and more accurate to flood the hole (easy when you're below sea level) and float the pile driver around on a small barge. They could place the piles with extreme accuracy by referring to bench marks on the "shore" and of course the water surface was level.
http://d.webring.com/hub?ring=earthships
While back paul42 posted a link to a news article about robotics involving manufactured housing I felt worth the repeat.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2546574,00.html
"It involves computer-controlled robotic nozzles which pipe quick-drying liquid gypsum and concrete to form walls, floors and roofs.
“The architectural options will explode,” predicted Dr Behrokh Khoshnevis at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who will soon unleash his $1.5m (£940,000) robot. “We will be able to build curves and domes as easily as straight walls.
"The researchers in Los Angeles claim their robot will be able to build the shell of a house in 24 hours. “Compared to a conventional house, the speed of construction will be increased 200-fold and the building costs will be reduced to a fifth of what they are today,” said Khoshnevis. "
be I mean if these facts are true...
As regards my stuff, I firmly believe that robotics such as this will be integral to the process in a decade or five. Will that drop building costs to 1/5th? Not likely...the portion of the costs this could replace isn't high enough to be able to drop the costs to 1/5th.We absolutely should be able to build better, faster, stronger--Lindsay Wagner, staring as the new Bob Vila!
http://www.superiorcoatings.net.au/
The scorching Australian sun is no problem for Supertherm. A heat insulation ceramics coating which keeps out 99.5% of all heat, has a rating of R19, 20 year guarantee and is NASA endorsed.
European Community has voted to ban fiberglass after 2005 and to have it remove from all public buildings after 2013. Each country will follow the ruling. Holy cow. that's news as I expect it won't be too long before the Americas will adopt the same.
I recall hearing something along this line a number of years ago from an asbestos removal company. Guy was laughing saying of fiberglass insulation: 'Ya, you can pay me to put it in and in a few years you can pay me to take it out.'
Apparently he wasn't kidding.
"being human is a complicated proposition"-DavidxDoud---Never show a fool a half finished job---GrampsyI feel like a bunny in a hillbilly meadow at noon..........jjwalters
Man, you got to love these guys... be 1/32" polycarbonate
are you 'simple but elegeant'?
Edited 2/3/2007 12:03 pm ET by rez
uncledunc,
you around?
are you 'simple but elegeant'?
>> uncledunc, you around?Yep. I always read when you post new stuff on this thread.
Guess what I'm going to do again?
be try anything once, twice if yer crazy
are you 'simple but elegeant'?
Cool! Same design? Bigger? Smaller? Are you going to use black and white shingles on this one?
Snork!
Same size sitting on RR ties with a rock floor and a door wide enough to drive the lawn tractor thru.
be there should be a way to do a metal roof.
are you 'simple but elegeant'?
From a dome blog...
"This dome rolls into a cigar shaped tube for deployment. I drove from Oswego, NY to Maine with it on top on my truck. Hardy know it was there. "
View Image
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
View Image
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
View Image View Image
This is the corrugated steel dome shelter rolled into a tube for deployment. The shot is through the center.
View ImageA third of the elements are finished. Production is moving faster and with better quality control.
View Image
This arch is built out of playing cards. It has vertexes built into the elements. This is not a slice of a cylinder. It is a slice of a polyhedron!
View ImageBy confining the edges of the corrugated sheet so the sheet can't expand while pounding a 3cm steel pipe across the grain, these sheets stay almost flat instead of becoming cylindrical. Cylindrical elements don't lay parrallel to each other when overlapped. Conical elements do. The cross-ribbing gives the sheet enough rigidity to work with them much more easily. The sheets are very floppy without the added ribs and this makes assembly difficult.
View Image
possible construction element for ultra-low-cost shelter.CGI means corrugated galvanized iron. It's not iron any more but it's mild steel or aluminum.
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
Soccer ball?!
http://g-wood.jp/en/
View Image View Image
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/34153/photo8.html
jt8
"One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman. But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop." -- Colin Powell
I'm thinking Bucky had most of the various derivative triangular/hexagon/pentagon style dome patents sowed up back in his day.
be a low cost shed
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
How about some siding on this one. Get that separation of roof and wall going. The clerestory thing on the top is cool, were those salvaged windows?
Got any octagonal windows in the piles of stuff? That panel just left of the 3-leg ladder would look nifty with a octagonal or maybe really large, round window (yes, I know it is just a shed, but this would use up some of that surplus).
View Imagejt8
"One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman. But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop." -- Colin Powell
snork.
I did consider siding,
and I considered window dormers in the pentagon panels.
I considered a lot of things.
Then I considered a shed,
and it won as the time involvement in the middle of summer was making the funtime project much too long as it wasn't a paying gig.
Now I'll build some simpler ones and transfer the stash. Then make that a cottage.
And add the various cutsie stuff and a second floor with a little curved stairway you could use to peek out at the top from. Maybe rent it out and become rich and famous like Cloud. bwaahaha!
Of course salvaged windows! First hand garage sale specials and have since learned that at one time those style windows were used in garage doors,
and seeing that there is a garage door manufacturing plant in the area it lends credence to that idea.
be ya, got a octagonal window that opens with a screen and some bubble windows. and some tinted bubble things that were made to cover security cameras so I can be spaceage too. That or be back in the 70s.
be an orange shag with a tie-dye stain
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
If you were going to use bubble windows, you'd have to build two sheds next to each other both with a bubble window in each, so that it would look like a bug-eyed creature in the back yard :)
jt8
"One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman. But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop." -- Colin Powell
I didn't realize there were any dome disciples here.
Dad built one in florida 10 years ago.
6" eps triangles wrapped in chicken wire and rebar, and the tightwad put the 3" concrete shell over it one 5 gallon bucket at a time.
View Image
Edited 2/12/2007 4:27 pm by bigal4102
Well hey Al, I take it it's Big Al and not bi gal.
Don't know if dome disciple would fit the bill as much as just being interested in alternative structures away from the normal 'osb under vinyl with drywall' boxes that are the norm today.
Hang around here long enough and you're apt to bump into about kind of building.
What does your Dad say about his dome now that 10 years have gone by?
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
Rez, he loves it, and he is also very interested in alternative structures, I sent him a link to this thread... he migh show some interst. He also has a little website, showing some of his other building methods.http://home.bellsouth.net/p/s/community.dll?ep=87&subpageid=104974&ck=Yes, I have updated my signature, to alleviate any screen name confusion. ;-DSince it seems I can't change it to be less confusing.
Edited 2/12/2007 6:10 pm by bigal4102
Nice site. View Image
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
From a site...
"As a sculptor of constructive geometric forms, my work deals with patterns and relationships derived from classical ideals of balance and symmetry. Mathematical yet organic, these abstract forms invite the viewer to partake of the geometric aesthetic. I use a variety of media, including paper, wood, plastic, metal, and assemblages of common household objects." View Image
only life affirming platitudes allowed -Doud '07Would a full cluster of enemies be called an enema? -Piffin
heh heh Looks like a lunar craft. View Image
Wish I knew what 'tatami mats' mean.
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
Edited 2/12/2007 2:34 pm ET by rez
Rez,"Wish I knew what 'tatami mats' mean."Sorry I'm late, I didn't get to this thread last night. Tatami mats are the straw mats used for the floor in a traditional Japanese house. They're all modular, roughly three by six feet, so instead of describing the size of a room in square meters or square feet, they simply say it's so many tatamis. One tatami is about 17.5 square feet, so the 30 tatami mat kitchen/dining room living room floor in the large size soccer ball house is about 525 square feet. Wikipedia has a lot more detail if you're interested:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TatamiDan
Thanks Dan. There is absolutely no way I would have figured that out on my own.
be learning something new every day
only life affirming platitudes allowed -Doud '07Would a full cluster of enemies be called an enema? -Piffin
http://www.edifier. com.mx/detalle. asp?id=35
View Image
View Image
UncleDunc-
I'm ready for spring.
my life is like the funny papers, but at least they're in color.
Domes for the World Foundation (DFTW) Builds Model Village - NewNgelepen is a model village of Monolithic EcoShells in Indonesia. InMay 2006, a 6.2 earthquake struck the Island of Java. Result: 1.5million survivors were left homeless, and Indonesia became one of themost needy areas on our planet.To help remedy this situation, DFTW was asked to design, direct andreconstruct the village of Ngelepen. Thus, construction of New Ngelepenbegan. In addition to 72 safe, clean, Monolithic EcoShell homes, thisvillage includes potable water, a septic system, public buildings androads.Below is a link to a 7-minute video about New Ngelepen's development.
http://dftw.org/downloads.html
View Image
Edited 3/25/2007 6:14 pm ET by rez
Edited 3/25/2007 6:15 pm ET by rez
http://www.zigloo.ca/index/projects/Zigloo_Domestique_Completed_Exterior
Edited 3/27/2007 1:50 am ET by rez
View Image
I never had a problem with character, people've been telling me I was one ever since I was a kid.
What are those ?
Any site to take a look at?
I think so. It was a guy from Brazil...brb
nope, it was just photos he'd posted.
be on human interest
Edited 3/27/2007 10:46 pm ET by rez
Modern Marvels episode on containers ended with folks making apartment buildings and houses out of cargo containers.
Those Indonesians sure don't have much frost line to worry about. Next big wave will probably just push those domes out to sea.
jt8
"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."-- Mother Teresa
That's one of the many sweet things of a dome.
They can then be inverted and double as a boat.
be trying that with a vinyl surburbian
I never had a problem with character, people've been telling me I was one ever since I was a kid.
Edited 3/28/2007 4:55 pm ET by rez
Double as a man-made artificial coral reef. And we don't know what happened to the people living in the dome when the wave hit.
jt8
"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."-- Mother Teresa
Rez, cool place.
And who else can claim to haul a whole damn house/shed/TP/whatever around in their Mecedes!
Doug
Is there really anybody still insulating with fibreglass?
Haven't done that since years. Use only mineral batts or EPS or polyfoam
Yep, big world of uneducated building DIYers out there who don't know better.
And a slew of homebuilders the same or don't care 'cause it's not their place they are building.
be just getting by
are you 'simple but elegeant'?
Edited 2/3/2007 6:51 pm ET by rez
Two things absent from the Supertherm website:-1. Any form of Australian Address, and2. No reference to humidity control. Unless one lives in the barren
interior of Australia, the main discomfort of enclosed spaces is
high humidity levels. To control humidity airflow is essential -
open the shell to airflow allows heat entry. Its a vicious cycle.
Even bananas feel it.Lapun.
build the shell of a house in 24 hours. Compared to a conventional house, the speed of construction will be increased 200-fold
What? they think it takes 200 days to frame a house? Whatarthey? Nuts?
Then after they get the shell extruded, they're gonna have to frame interior walls anyway.
And what about exterior wall outlets? Gonna run exposed conduit?
Lessee now, suppose maintainence and depreciation on this magical machine come to about 5% of its' cost per unit extruded. . .times $1.5M. . . that's . ..carry the 1. . .$75,000 per shell. Hmmnnn, sounds high, let's try 2%. . .$30,000/shell. What's labor + material - windows and doors to dry in a 3br house?SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
Hey, it's the internet. People say what they want when they want for whatever reason.
be getting that high r-value out of reflextive bubblewrap
be just reporting the news, Captain.
all the news that shid to print
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
Amen.SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
DETROIT Feb 10, 2007 (AP)— Home-buyers of tomorrow could find themselves walking across floors made from manure. Researchers at Michigan State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture insist it's no cow pie in the sky dream. They say that fiber from processed and sterilized cow manure could take the place of sawdust in making fiberboard, which is used to make everything from furniture to flooring to store shelves. And the resulting product smells just fine.
The researchers hope it could be part of the solution to the nation's 1.5-trillion- to 2-trillion pound annual farm waste disposal problem.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2864397
PMP
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
Back in the 70s, readers of Popular Science magazine were regularly treated to a parade of electrical gadgets, outlandish vehicles, and the latest discoveries in materials science, all promising to change our lives in the near, if slightly indefinite, future. One typical article carried this description of a contraption erected in France:The traveler who visits the library of Tours sees in the courtyard in front a strange-looking apparatus. Imagine an immense truncated cone, a mammoth lampshade, with its concavity directed skyward... On the small base of the truncated cone rests a copper cylinder, blackened on the outside, its vertical axis being identical with that of the cone.
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/6/beautifulpossibility.php
only life affirming platitudes allowed - Doud '07
Didn't know you had your own game.
View Image
http://www.amazon.com/Rez/dp/B00005ULXM/ref=sr_1_227/103-5947701-3305414?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1175117714&sr=1-227
jt8
"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."
-- Mother Teresa
ya, but I thought Jonathan Winters passed on a while ago?
I never had a problem with character, people've been telling me I was one ever since I was a kid.
Collaboration on converting a 3,000 bushel grain bin into 2 one room apartments. They chose the grain bin because it already had walls, a roof, and a concrete floor. This made for a simpler project that they could complete in the 3 months before winter.
http://www.dancingrabbit.org/building/GrainBin.php
Parolee # 53804
Edited 4/5/2007 11:51 pm ET by rez
Monday, April 9, 2007
Ed Regis on the future of spaceportsThe new issue of Air & Space Smithsonian features a look at the future of spaceports, bases for space tourism that are being proposed all over the world, from Singapore and Sweden to Uphan, New Mexico, Columbus, Ohio, and Sheyboygan, Wisconsin. (The author of the article, Ed Regis, has written several fantastic future science books like the Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition and Nano! The True Story of Nanotechnology.) (Seen here is a conceptual drawing of Space Adventures' Spaceport Singapore.) View ImageFrom the article:
Link
Parolee # 53804
My neighbor built a full single family home in a 15,000 bu bin several years ago.He has since sold that and moved into an old AT&T bunker/underground switching building.A medium to large guy named Alan, not an ambiguous female....
NOT that there is anything wrong with that.
What dimensions would a 15,000 bushel be?
be bushed
Parolee # 53804
Oh, approx 36' diameter by 20-22' tall.Those 3000 bu ones are 18' diameter and 16' tall.36 x 36 x .7854 = 1018 sq ft x .8 bu/cu ft = 814 bushels per foot of hieght.so 15000/814= 18.5' tall. figure 20'to the eave.18' diameter = 255 sq ft or 204 bu/ft height. 15 foot of grain, so probably 18' to the eaves on that one.A medium to large guy named Alan, not an ambiguous female....
NOT that there is anything wrong with that.
36dia is nothing to sneeze at.
Would be plenty of room for a medium to large guy.
Wonder how big a footer they use to put on those things?
Parolee # 53804
Mostly what guys around here call a "rat slab".8-12" slab, with a 18" deep trench around the perimeter, to keep the rats from burrowing under.Once the steel bin is bolted to the slab, they are pretty stable, and frost heaves don't really affect anything.Might have to re engineer for deck or porch or plumbing connections though I guess. ?A medium to large guy named Alan, not an ambiguous female....
NOT that there is anything wrong with that.
I was just considering the tremendous weight a brick cylinder of that size would create on a footing.
When one sees the footings necessary, code wise, to house a simple brick or stone fireplace footprint it makes me wonder if it is really needed and not in some mode of over-engineering?
Parolee # 53804
Interestingly, weight is often a small factor in footers. Twisting and racking are a big part of it. The houses I do, despite being much heavier, often require the same or smaller footer than a neighboring conventional house, because the reinforced concrete house without corners (I ain't saying "d___") will hold itself together (the slab is just weight-bearing), while a traditional house needs to get all that from the slab.
I think it is probably related to the bin being all steel and bolted together, and self contained. Another point, is bins are relatively lightwieght when empty. A swag would be 1/3 the weight of a similar brick structure?A medium to large guy named Alan, not an ambiguous female....
NOT that there is anything wrong with that.
Oh, my mistake. I have the pallets of silo and fire brick stored behind my place in the back of my mind via you comments on the silo bin. My bad.
Cloud, your comments on footers makes me wonder how large a footer might be needed for a large brick masonry heater. Any idea?
Aw, forget that, too technical an answer meaning more technical data I'd have to dig up but thanks for the info.
Parolee # 53804
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7891
Improbable "Buckyegg" Hatched
September 28, 2006<!-- Editor's note: [Field: 'editors_notes', -EncodeNone] -->
View Image
View Image
View Image
Buckyegg (Christine Beavers/graphic)
An egg-shaped fullerene, or "buckyball egg" has been made and characterized by chemists at UC Davis, Virginia Tech and Emory and Henry College, Va. The unexpected discovery opens new possibilities for structures for fullerenes, which could have a wide range of uses.
"It was a total surprise," said Christine Beavers, a chemistry graduate student working with Professors Alan Balch and Marilyn Olmstead at UC Davis. Beavers is first author on the paper, published this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Fullerenes, sometimes called "buckyballs," are usually spherical molecules of carbon, named after the futurist R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome. The carbon atoms are arranged in pentagons and hexagons, so their structures can resemble a soccer ball. An important rule -- until now -- is that no two pentagons can touch, but are always surrounded by hexagons.
The "buckyegg" compound was made by collaborating scientists at Virginia Tech, led by Professor Harry Dorn. They heated a mixture of carbon and other ingredients under special conditions to make a mixture of fullerenes, then shipped the products to UC Davis, where Balch's group worked on characterizing their structures.
When Beavers started to map out the structure, she found two pentagons next to each other, making the pointy end of the egg. Initially she thought that the results were a mistake, but she showed the data to Marilyn Olmstead, an expert on X-ray crystallography, and they decided that the results were real. The egg contains a molecule of triterbium nitride inside.
The experiment was actually part of a project to find new, more predictable ways to make fullerenes, Beavers said. The researchers were trying to make fullerenes with atoms of terbium, a metal from the lanthanide series of the periodic table, trapped inside. Metals similar to terbium are used as contrast agents for some medical scanning procedures. By putting these metals inside fullerenes, the researchers hope to make compounds that could be both medically useful and well-tolerated in the body.
The other authors on the research paper are Tianming Zuo and Kim Harich at Virginia Tech and James Duchamp at Emory and Henry College. Funding was provided by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Parolee # 53804
Old MacDonald Had A Farmers’ Market –total self-sufficiency is a noble, misguided ideal
I doubt if many people reading these words have had a spontaneous visit from a neighbor in the past week — less than a fifth of Americans report visiting regularly with friends and neighbors, and the percentage is declining steadily. The number of close friends that an American claims has dropped steadily for the last fifty years too; three-quarters of us don’t know our next-door neighbors. Even the people who share our houses are becoming strangers: The Wall Street Journal reported recently that “major builders and top architects are walling off space. They’re touting one-person ‘internet alcoves,’ locked-door ‘away rooms,’ and his-and-her offices on opposite ends of the house.” The new floor plans, says the director of research for the National Association of Home Builders, are “good for the dysfunctional family.” Or, as another executive put it, these are the perfect homes for “families that don’t want anything to do with one another.” Compared to these guys, Thoreau with his three-chair cabin was practically Martha Stewart.Every culture has its pathologies, and ours is self-reliance. From some mix of our frontier past, our Little House on the Prairie heritage, our Thoreauvian desire for solitude, and our amazing wealth we’ve derived a level of independence never seen before on this round earth. We’ve built an economy where we need no one else; with a credit card, you can harvest the world’s bounty from the privacy of your room. And we’ve built a culture much the same — the dream houses those architects build, needless to say, come with a plasma screen in every room. As long as we can go on earning good money in our own tiny niche, we don’t need a helping hand from a soul — save, of course, from the invisible hand that cups us all in its benign grip.http://www.incharacter.org/article.php?article=87
Parolee # 53804
The focus of Red Feather's American Indian Sustainable Housing Initiative is to educate Indian nations on straw bale building methods that will enable tribes to establish frameworks for long-term self-sufficiency. It also provides a model for rebuilding reservation communities and facilitating positive change. Using workshops and seminars to demonstrate volunteer-friendly straw bale construction techniques, communities are empowered to build desperately needed homes and community facilities in a manner that also helps restore their social structure.
http://www.redfeather.org/programs.html
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
Coming to a garden near you - the solar-powered barbecueby JAMES MILLS - 20th April 2007 For those who want to nibble an al-fresco sausage or chicken drumstick without the guilt of adding to global warming, it is the answer to a prayer.
A barbecue powered by the sun is now on sale in the UK.
The Solar-Grill, available online for £125, is said to catch sunlight with mirrors and reflect it on to the hot plate, a strip of black metal running across the centre which absorbs the heat.
View Image
Sun trap: The mirror at the top reflects the rays on the hot plate
To start grilling without smoke or flames, all the chef need do is lift the lid on the shiny silver device, aim it at the sun and place the food inside.
Its makers claim it is ideal for use in places where naked flames are forbidden or unsafe, such as balconies in flats and campsites.
View Image
The solar-powered grill allows environmentally- concious cooks to enjoy grilling outside without feeling guilty about carbon emissions
Whether it will prove as effective under Britain's often-grey summer skies as on sun-kissed Bondi Beach, however, remains to be seen. And some fans will undoubtedly miss the traditional smoky BBQ taste, since the result is the same as a conventional grill.
The Swiss manufacturers say that if the clouds sweep in when food is half done, cooking can be continued with odourless alcohol-based fuel tablets.
For the adventurous chef, the eco-friendly contraption boasts telescopic legs, which allow it to be set up on uneven terrain such as the side of a mountain.
View Image
To start grilling without smoke or flames, all the chef need do is lift the lid on the shiny silver device, aim it at the sun and place the food inside
Rolf Schneeberger, of makers Tammock Trading, said: "There's no smoke, no open fire and no pollution. It's a small contribution to saving the environment but we feel we are doing our bit to help people be more green."
Nick Rau, of Friends of the Earth, said: "The solar-powered barbecue is a promising sign because if you are a person who likes the outdoors, then you should be even more aware of your carbon footprint."
Brinkman in '08
HEY! He's back!
and has been making the grade with a bit of popularity in the media!
Ya gotta love this guy.
View Image
Spirit Spheres
A plan to populate the treetops View Image
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2007/03/032507_4.html
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
Not sure whether this belongs here or in the green building thread (well, at least the builder claims Green - I have my doubts). 12" thick solid wood walls are kinda different (unless it's logs...)
View Image
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/21/HOGAQPAKL51.DTL
Has anyone seen these before? Inexpensive and quick to erect...perfect for shelter needs after natural disasters. Most of the time tents are sent to remote areas and they are meant to be temporary housing, but it can be a year or more before permanent housing can be provided. Tents aren’t too warm in the winter…<!----><!----><!---->
http://www.calearth.org/EcoDome.htm
View Image
View Image
Edited 4/22/2007 7:40 pm ET by Parch
Edited 4/22/2007 7:41 pm ET by Parch
Boy, those are pretty interesting.
Have you seen these in person before?
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
No, but I came across the website a couple of years ago and I recall there being a video of them building one. It just seemed like a really simple idea and the design possibilities and layouts are infinite.
So in a simplistic nutshell it is stacked extremely long sand bags of native soil with some type of additive in with the soil?
Seems a backhoe with a hopper set up to funnelfeed the bags would be pretty quick and the only heavy manuel labor would be wrassling around with the sandbag snakes.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
wrudiger
There was a grain elevator torn down around here a few months ago that was built in a similar manner - same except these boards were on horizontal. From the road they appeared to be 2" X 10"s.
As I drove by it I wondered how many hand drivin nails were in that place, and the carpenters that had to do it without the aid of a pnumatic nailer.
Doug
Doug.
One of the interesting things about this approach, and part of their claim to "green" is that there are no nails. It's all dowelled. Dowels are drier than the wood & soak up some of the moisture to swell & lock in place.
Are they trying to salvage all that lumber from the grain elevator? And remove all those hand-driven nails?
Wayne
Wayne
NO, they tore the damn thing down and hauled it all to the dump!
I drove by it about 50 times wondering how I could do something with the wood, didnt come up with anything. Well I did but they all involved to much labor!
I would guess the thing was pretty strong, been there for 100 years or better and didnt look any worse for the wear. But its all gone now.
Doug
Go ahead, get me cryin'.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
Looks well built and nicely stacked to me. And the house is interesting, too.(-:
Wanted: Human cannonball – must be able to travel.
PowerBeam uses laser to power solar panel with energy beam
By Dean TakahashiMercury News
Article Launched: 04/20/2007 01:44:22 AM PDT
Click photo to enlarge
View Image
PowerBeam co-founders Xiaobing Luo and David Graham with their... (Karen T. Borchers / Mercury News)
«
1
2
»
Who ever heard of wireless electricity? Seems impossible.
I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen a demo myself at PowerBeam, a Sunnyvale start-up. The technology they showed off makes me believe that big, revolutionary ideas are still possible in Silicon Valley - even after decades of innovation. Don't close down the patent office yet.
PowerBeam co-founders David Graham and Xiaobing Luo showed me how they could power up a little toy with a spinning fan without using either batteries or a wired power source. They can do so with an invention that seems suspiciously simple.
They pointed a laser beam at a solar cell. The solar cell collects the light energy from the laser and converts it into electricity. Light in, electricity out.
Then the electricity travels from the solar cell into the device. They call it an "optical power beam."
It's the same principle that powers your pocket calculator with a solar cell. But in this case, PowerBeam gets a lot more electrical power from a laser as far away as 65 feet.
In a patent application, PowerBeam says it can produce much more electrical power than other methods because it has tamed a dangerous laser. It uses a powerful laser of the sort that could cut through your hand, but it has integrated a safety system, allowing it to channel a lot of energy into the solar cell.
I can't be a good judge about the PowerBeam technology (other than vouching that the demo worked). But I love the vision. I believe that someone who pioneers this market will find a bonanza.
Graham envisions someone using a laptop without plugging it in at all. You could, for instance, sit at a cafe or in the middle of a hotel ballroom and draw power from a light fixture above the center of the room.
A laser atop the light fixture would seek out any solar receptor in the room with help from a detection system, such as a camera. When it finds it, the laser would concentrate its light beam on the laptop's solar cell.
The size of the solar cells needed would vary based on how much power is needed. A cell phone could be charged with a solar cell the size of a silver dollar, says Graham.
For a laptop, the cell would be bigger and be mounted as a pad on the laptop's cover. If PowerBeam systems improved and became popular, you wouldn't need batteries for your laptop as you travel.
Another application is security cameras, which often need to be placed where it's not convenient to string an electrical cord. A security camera can run on just four watts, which Graham says his device can produce using a very small solar cell.
Still another application is to use the PowerBeam system to connect high-end audio speakers anywhere in a room without having an unsightly electrical cord attached to it.
It's a big dream for a little company. PowerBeam is just a two-person company in Sunnyvale's Plug and Play Tech Center, a building that houses scores of start-ups. The company still has perhaps two years or more before it gets a product on the market.
But Graham says the company has filed for patents on the basic invention and is now talking to potential partners about applications.
"We produce wireless electricity, " Graham says. "Think of us as PG&E. Our partners will do interesting things with it."
As for competition, it isn't hard to find patents for "wireless electricity. " In the early 1900s, radio pioneer Nikola Tesla unsuccessfully tried to commercialize a wireless electricity invention.
Many wireless power solutions aren't really useful because of problems relating to how much power they can transfer over distance.
Last year, a research team headed by Marin Soljacic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said it could transfer electricity wirelessly using a concept called electromagnetic resonance. Powercast, a Pennsylvania start-up, says it has a safe wireless power system that uses radios to transmit power.
The company says it will be used in lots of devices by the end of 2008. And another start-up, WildCharge, is preparing to start selling a pad that wirelessly charges cell phones that are placed on top of it.
PowerBeam's Graham says his solution uniquely combines a powerful laser with a safety system.
This isn't his first start-up. He sold a previous software company to National Semiconductor in 2003 for an undisclosed sum. After a year at National, he left to start something new. He dreamed up the PowerBeam idea about two years ago and later recruited Luo, a former National colleague who is an optical scientist.
The two men were able to get a short-range demo working in December, and I saw it work across the width of a sizable room. The company is self-funded so far, but it plans to raise venture money. The solution eventually has to solve somebody's problem, and it has to be inexpensive.
"About 10 percent of this is science," Graham says. "The rest of it is engineering. "
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Parolee # 53804
Snork! I was kinda waiting for a comment along those lines. Thanks for not disappointing me!
p.s. love the farming blog thing-thank you!
I found some pics of some competetion for Cloud...Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or, gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown!-Thoreau's Walden
View Imagetagline- The secretary of the Province of New Netherland, writing in Dutch, in 1650, for the information of those who wished to take up land there, states more particularly that "those in New Netherland, and especially in New England, who have no means to build farmhouses at first according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the bark of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth; floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear up, and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their entire families for two, three, and four years -Thoreau's Walden
Harvesting the wind in Inner Mongolia.
View Imagetagline-...for two, three, and four years, it being understood that partitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size of the family. The wealthy and principal men in New England, in the beginning of the colonies, commenced their first dwelling-houses in this fashion for two reasons: firstly, in order not to waste time in building, and not to want food the next season; -Thoreau's Walden
Islanders In Papua New Guinea Run Car On Coconut OilMay 8, 2007 9:09 p.m. ESTSusheela Hegde - AHN Staff WriterArawa, Papua New Guinea (AHN) - Even as efforts are on to find alternative fuels to petrol and diesel across the world, residents on a tiny island in Papua New Guinea run their cars and generators on refined coconut oil. What is more, many of them have set up mini-refineries to produce the low-cost environmentally friendly new fuel, helping boost the country's economy. It may not be far before the technology spreads to other parts of the world as inquiries started pouring in to Bougainville island, according to reports. German engineer Matthias Horn, who owns a refinery on the island is quoted by BBC Tuesday: "The coconut tree is a beautiful tree. Doesn't it sound good if you really run your car on something which falls off a tree and that's the good thing about it. You run your car and it smells nice and it's environmentally friendly and that's the main thing." The new invention happened as an answer to the fuel woes being faced by the islanders in face of growing oil prices hitting their businesses. Now the sweet-smelling fuel make the residents less dependent on the imported diesel.tagline-...for two, three, and four years, it being understood that partitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size of the family. The wealthy and principal men in New England, in the beginning of the colonies, commenced their first dwelling-houses in this fashion for two reasons: firstly, in order not to waste time in building, and not to want food the next season; -Thoreau's Walden
So the cars smell like scantily clad women on a beach?
I could dig it.Parolee # 40835
On a sun-baked fringe of arid California desert that in places resembles a lunar landscape, Khalili, an Iranian-born architect who came to the United States in 1971, proudly surveys his cluster of ceramic, domed homes.
Khalili's work has been recognized by the United Nations and he is regularly invited to give presentations to NASA about the possibilities of his designs being used for lunar colonies.Once secured, the interior of the dome dwelling is kiln fired, sealing the interior with a thick crust of terra-cotta.
http://www.calearth.org/My days in the woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at noon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my bread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were covered with a thick coat of pitch.
-Thoreau's Walden
This is a good sequel to my favorite thread. I still stay awake nights wondering about the truth behind that freakin' window in the chimney.The lunar colony is a great idea, though you do have to wonder if the aliens haven't already invaded and brought their architecture with them.I especially like the dodad on top. It looks like the finial on a lamp, useful for screwing the whole thing on tight so it doesn't wobble on its axis.