Dry-pack Brick Arches and Domes

Learning from natural structures at the Thresholds Centre, with SmallEarth and NewEarthUK:

Thoughts linking to earth architecture...

'We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We cut windows and doors for a house,
but it is the inner spacethat makes it livable.

We work with being
but non-being is what we use.'

Tao Te Ching Chapter 11
-adapted from 1988 translation by S.Mitchell

 

 

Re:Urban, Dense sustainability.

Evidently there are too many of us, all the data proves. With rising populations there will definitely be too many to live sustainably on small-holdings in the countryside. One-planet living describes this by data showing that if everyone on the planet lived like a European, we would need three planets.

Therefore the model for eco-living off-grid, in the middle of no-where - although it has a certain charm - as an idealized sustainable life needs to be erased. Cities are currently fuel guzzling, consuming swarms of potential and individual opportunity that spread their waste and destruction far and wide, but, if re-thought, re-fitted and cycled up, (looped,) they are just what we need in order to see human society into the future of human population growth.

The grid is good. It both provides everyone in small, dense spaces with what they need as well as freeing up peoples time to be spent being citizens. (One theory for the emergence of cities – those producing things not food (ploughs and shoes) for those who produce food, allowing those who produce food time to make a surplus to feed those who need time away from growing food in order to make the things needed.) – Such as Catal Huyuk on the Mesopotamian plains possibly back to 9000 years ago. (‘Cities’ by John Reader.))

Current grids are linear, with input and output waste, we need to change this to sustainable systems that are circular and effective and that everybody can contribute to, eliminating the concept of waste and creating more self-sustaining city systems. This is why the movement to micro-renewables and feed-in-tariffs is essential to the development of our cities. But is a very small part of the over-arching theme of things that need to change.

For Better or Worse: Society it has to be.

We struggle here, in this Big Society, in his Bad Economy, to find any work, to pay any rent, to make any friends…People are happy to let me work for them for free, they like my approach to design and are impressed by my portfolio, but can they pay me? No. In this Big Society, should relative worth (money) become something else (food and company – community projects – like Wwoofing?) There is no Money to be earnt, so therefore, I cannot have a home, or even rent a room, I cannot afford public transport, let alone a car, insurance, petrol, so I am stuck to the distance of my pedals and the generosity of ever-helpful friend and  So, there is another life we discussed over breakfast with my great uncle Ray (artist.) One where with just $250 one could buy an acre in the desert, (southern USA,) and for just $500 start to build shelter, collect rain water, generate electricity, and grow food, and all this in a place where a reputation is easily built, so people will trust you and always come to you for odd jobs, after a while, one could have a home, a farm, water, food, a family, a community, electricity and a lot of time to think in a beautiful country.

The discussion; I say, so one can stick with society and struggle, or turn their back on society…live and run around in the desert and relax. Ray says it wouldn’t be turning back, instead, it would be creating a new society.

These words new society don’t seem to be the case, or would they work.

Firstly, if anyone were to start a new society, it wouldn’t be the easy life in the desert described above. A society needs laws and principles on which it operates, that is what our big society is. I know we haven’t got it anywhere near perfect, no one has, but maybe it is impossible to. The history of America, (and in fact the whole history of human migration,) is a great tale of people moving to the frontier, the new lands, in order to live in a way unrestrained by where they were, essentially to make a better lives for themselves and their children, (usually away from tax,) in other words, a new society. And people are still escaping the urban rat society to live on the frontier and cultivate land and a ‘new society’ to this day. All they managed to do was create more places that people want to escape from. Ideology and utopias are prisons, real cities and societies are unpredictable. We must stay and grow what we have, as Reader says in ‘Cities’ : “So long as cities have been […], change has been the currency that sustains them – demolition and reconstruction, the recycling of investment…” We must continue the change and development of our societies rather than starting from fresh yet again.

City Box House

For those young single people who want to live in the center and for our centers that have limited space for new developments. Build small one-person, low-E, city boxes on top of things which aren't used currently. Here's an idea for MK:

City Bird

A Birds Nest.

Some birds to create shelter to protect and warm the growing family make nests that are created out of things collected from the locality and placed together to form a whole space. The cup nest: Straw, grass, mud...woven together. They choose the location deliberately; safe from predators, sheltered from rains and winds, not too far from food. Family-sized spaces in the gaps between elements in the natural landscape.

What about a nest for the city bird, would they collect trash, compost, recycling, shards of man-made materials, all found in the locality, situated in an out-of-the-way underpass corner not seen from the street, or on the roof of a high rise, between the roof door space and the satellites? Family-sized spaces in the gaps between elements in the built landscape.

Hook into Systems

To measure a civilization:

Arrive at a city, a new city, with nothing...how to survive? Urban bush craft. Try to hook into the systems - the systems of life that are the veins and arteries of a surviving citizen. And by citizen meaning the true - a member of the city. First the fresh water systems - the pipes that steal the water from mountains far away and quench the multiplying population. Then the food, imported from the rest of the world, preserved and distributed, the first water and food must be found without money - you arrived with nothing - there are systems for these.

The systems then get more complex, more culturally bent, you must find shelter, this begins with clothing and ends with a house, there are various systems for this. You must find places to wash.

PRIMARY SYSTEMS:
        Water systems
        Food systems
        Shelter systems

Then the systems that organize the citizens must be infiltrated. You must find a way to gain relative worth, in order to trade. Money. A job, work for food and shelter directly or for a wage...play the money game.

SECONDARY SYSTEMS:
        Relative Worth
        Information systems
        Transport systems
        Communication systems

How quickly and easily can this be achieved? What is the value of the city to the citizen for life...everything if you are to live within it. And this is defined, labeled and enabled by architecture.

Sustainable Marathon...The Booklet

Here's the upload for the booklet handed out at the Sustainable Open Weekend in Marathon - talked about in another post - We compiled all the information to be discussed and places to visit during the event. The pages are added as jpeg's so click on them to view larger.

The Meeting Dome

At the beginning of the Summer La Loma Del Chivo community had been split into 4 corners…The Sunhouse, John’s Gypsy Camp, The Goatshed Hostel and Guil’s Nabolom, so we came up with the idea to build a central meeting space, an outdoor space on the path between the two places of congregation as a place for coffee, music conversations and art. When Guil got involved in the plan, he pulled out some inspiring drawings by Kiv from a few years back that suggested we needed a dome. It was about the same time when John Suficool drove Mike, Kikay Wes, Guil and I down into Terlingua to meet Don Bryant.

Don Bryant has been building domes for decades. Out here in the dessert, he has been evolving a smart way to build Geodesic domes. From the basic tetrahedron shapes, he takes the triangles and breaks them up into various frequencies of smaller triangles, much like the methods of Buckminster Fuller, however, Don rationalizes the complex construction this usually requires by generating jigs and forms for the original size panels, meaning one does not need to cut each and every triangle.

This means that with one jig, one can assemble the strong geodesic framework for the dome in record time. Furthering this idea, if enough panels are creates from the jig to create one dome, the panels themselves can become forms - assembled, copied on site and removed, leaving a dome framework and then being passed on to the next builders, or, another dome built connecting to the first.

This is the method that Don recommended to us. Trevor, who lives near to Don has tried this out and is currently building the first of his domes, so, while he is working on the window and door fittings, he has kindly lent us the forms before he starts on the second.

Before collecting the forms, Eric and I dug and filled a 1foot deep foundation at the same diameter to the forms - 18foot. Assembling and placing the forms took almost no time at all and the next day we started wiring together the rebar.  Once all the framework lines had been copied, and a rebar ring attached at the base to the foundation, the forms could be removed - by simply cutting the initial wiring.

We decided to go for a less expensive option by instead of using regular cement lath and trawling on the stucco, we would use chicken wire and cement-soaked sheets to create the initial egg-shell layer, this technique is borrowed from Mike Reynolds ‘The Hut’ video where they use this as an inexpensive way to make the first shell on a roof. This technique has worked well in the sense that it gives a backing for the cement and thus there is less loss of material - as there can often be when trowling through regular lathe. Paper - Mache building! Before adding the sheets we wired up electricity lines for where the lights and the outlets will go.

This is the stage we are currently on, see the photo album for more images during construction.

The Trailer Plot Project

This is one of my projects at La Loma. It explores a few ideas including a mobile life, minimum space living and permaculture. The trailer itself is an old corrugated metal shell from (we think) the 1950's. The main concept is a question about a balance between a partially nomadic life and maintaining a small 'home-base'. Below are listed the key elements of the ongoing experiment.

a)  The inside space will be the trailer itself, a house on wheels, it will be able to sleep 4 (or a small family,) in fold away beds so that in the day time, the space can be a living room with benches, sofa's and desk's.

b)  When the trailer is at the home-base it has a secondary covering, to aid in the weatherproofing of the vehicle and shade it from hot summer sun. This roof is made from recycled posts, Plywood sheets and corrugated metal sheets - all from the 'resource pile' at La Loma. The roof space allows for the installation of rain water collection year-round - even when the trailer is not present - this can be connected to an irrigation system so the plants can be watered when the occupants are not their. This extra roof space also gives a platform for future installments that could include solar-heated shower and PV power cells.

c)  The decking provides an outdoor living space for good weather, a spill-over area from the small interior living space. It also gives a space to act as a workshop, entertainment space or plant nursery. A flat-topped shade above the decking, allows for extended use of the outdoor area in the heat of the day and doubles floor space by creating a balcony with excellent views to the sunset over the mountains. This balcony could be used to sleep on as well as roof-top storage and would be a perfect position for a food-dehydrator.

d)  The 600 feet squared that is the 'Trailer Plot' gives plenty of room for design with food. The boundaries of the home-base are created by raised planting beds at various heights, snaking around from the rain water collection tank (highest point) to ground level beds, using gravities flow of water. The planting uses a permaculture method of organizing plants together in groups, to build soil, and to work with the insects for a self-sustaining organic garden. Within two years of development using a permaculture method, the land space should be able to generate all the food for the family and their neighbors (excepting starches.) 

e) Future developments of the experiment include an outdoor kitchen area, using a fire-pit stove, an adobe oven, a partly submerged, cool storage space for food and a shade from the sun. The creation of a 'food forest' on the border of the plot and the possibility of a solar composting toilet.

Beehive Life...Post-building my own shelter

Last November I arrived at La Loma Del Chivo in West Texas as a Wwoofer...to help experiment in alternative building. The people who welcomed me as family, said if I could draw my idea and explain it, I could build it. I worked with Kikay for a few days on the Sweat Lodge he was building. He introduced me to the ideas of Nader Khalili, an Iranian architect, who founded the Cal-Earth Institute. Khalili designs simple shelters built from the materials of War...refuge shelters, built from the materials that are readily available: sandbags, barbed wire and dirt. They can be built by families and children and take the form of domes and vaults. So I decided to begin a Khalili 'Bed-Womb' small, half-dome shaped shelter for one or two people.

There was already in existence a path - 'the glass street' made from crushed recycled glass bottles and flag stone, leading from the Goatshed - the hub of the community, towards the garden and the sunhouse, which, at the time was under construction. This gave a natural location for the first more private room for guests.

At the beginning of the path, I dug a foundation, using two books as guides during the design and build of 'The Beehive'. These were: Nader Khalili's book 'Emergency Sandbag Shelter', and a book by a family who had built a whole home using the same technique.

After a week of building two other wwoofers - Jarrett and Amber - got involved and as a team we made the Beehive over the next 6 weeks.6 months later I have returned to La Loma and currently live in the Beehive. It now has solar panels to power a light or music player, a front step, a rocket stove and plants growing in the planter that collects all the run-off from the half-dome.

Building my own shelter has been a very significant and important turning point for me, after this and many subsequent projects - I now know that it is possible to create by hand the 4 key elements to settled survival;              

             1-Shelter,
             2-Water Collection,
             3-Soil cultivation for food growth and
             4-Use and collection of Available Energy.