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Hi, Adam just invited me to the Tribe.
My "day job" is designing shelter and infrastructure systems aimed at the developing world and, particularly, disaster relief. Testing ground for the shelter designs has always been Burning Man.
hexayurt.com/ - the designs are free
There's a lot of reasons why you'd want to start out with a very lightweight appropriate-technology based approach for the Island.
Vinay
My "day job" is designing shelter and infrastructure systems aimed at the developing world and, particularly, disaster relief. Testing ground for the shelter designs has always been Burning Man.
hexayurt.com/ - the designs are free
There's a lot of reasons why you'd want to start out with a very lightweight appropriate-technology based approach for the Island.
Vinay
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Re: Infrastructure and technology
Fri, October 26, 2007 - 1:09 PMAh fantastic. I didn't realize that you were one of the hexayurt guys.
I've certainly looked into them before.
They may or may not make sense for us.
We'd of course had to add in the price of shipping. So, if we're sending down a shipping container then we could add in hexayurt materials. Otherwise it might be prohibitively expensive to ship them down.
Also, how many months do you think that a hexayurt would last?
Cheers. Great to have you in here. -
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Re: Infrastructure and technology
Sun, October 28, 2007 - 11:28 AMFor hurricanes, you take the hexayurts down again. Nothing that isn't concrete or an equivalent structure is going to stand up to hurricanes.
As for lifespan, all depends what you make it out of. Thermax HD is *well* worth a look. I'd also investigate local availability - polyisocyanurate insulation boards are in use all over the world - I think you might well be able to find local materials.
If you want a bigger space, I firmly recommend clustering 12' hexayurts together (hexagonal bases, remember?) rather than building bigger ones. We just don't know enough about the materials and the load handling. I've got the designs for the bigger hexayurts here:
vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/h...ine-351
Just remember that I don't think these will work with polyisocyanurate boards (i.e. thermax HD) in any kind of wind loading, and nobody has ever built one. -
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Re: Infrastructure and technology
Sun, October 28, 2007 - 12:38 PMVinay:
> I think you might well be able to find local materials.
Interesting. I'll take a look once I get down there.
> If you want a bigger space, I firmly recommend clustering 12' hexayurts together (hexagonal bases, remember?) rather than building bigger ones.
Hmmm, right. You can just attach two together, remove a wall, and have a 2 bedroom home.
> We just don't know enough about the materials and the load handling.
Well, if we like the material, and if it's locally available, then we should be the right group to experiment with it. :-)
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Re: Infrastructure and technology
Fri, October 26, 2007 - 1:58 PMcool stuff, ive been looking at hexayurts for a long time. just going over the video now makes me want to make one for next year.
curious though, i can see how this design would stand up to the playa well, but how does it do in the wet tropical areas? how would it stand up to a hurricane (as opposed to a dust storm with hurricane strength winds)? does that material float? and how available is it outside the US?
how big do you think you could make one before you needed internal/frame support?
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Re: Infrastructure and technology
Wed, November 7, 2007 - 12:45 PM
I like the Ecodome approach better. It is built of on-site materials, mostly. Just a few things to ship, mainly the plastic tubing to make the super-adobe circles, and some barbed wire/bailing wire. All made of earth (adobe, essentially), insulated, inexpensive, and the plans have all been worked out (and you can even connect one dome to another to create super structures). They will definintely stand up in a hurricane.. The professor has been working on this for over 20 years, as a disaster relief structure. But its gone beyond that. Plus, we could always visit his demo models in Hesperia, CA to check it out, and even take classes on how to build them.
check it out, some good pics here:
www.calearth.org/ -
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Re: Infrastructure and technology
Wed, November 7, 2007 - 1:20 PM> I like the Ecodome approach better.
I checked out the photos. Pretty damn stylish.
There is already one mud house of some sort on the island.
Leads me to believe that they might be perfect for the environment.
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