Links
Good Designs by Others
Shelter
For their simplicity, ease, economy, strength, beauty, and elegance,
I recommend the following designs/methods for shelter construction:
Self-Strutting Geodesic Plydome Steve Miller's perfection of the frameless sphere from Buckminster Fuller's own pencil
Conic Shelter Chuck Henderson's sweeping, simple, brilliant, circled-square construction
Hexayurt Vinay Gupta's 3-hour, $200, portable pop up shelter
Superadobe Nadir Khalili's giant upside down coil pots made from war materials
BioHome a steel-reinforced, 90 R-value foam dome
Pillow Dome (pdf)
Jay Baldwin's perfection of Bucky's
Skybreak concept: a very light, "ephemeralized" frame-and-skin geodesic dome, with panels of noble gas-inflated fluoropolymeric
(teflon/ptfe plastic) pillows. This ultimately led to the
gigantic greenhouses at The Eden Project in England
Warmlite Tent
Jack Stephenson's masterful 2-5 person tents. He and his designs
have had a huge influence on all my design thinking for 13 years. Can you imagine, he went from being an insulation engineer on NASA
space rockets to designing camping gear! After 40 years, his stuff is still decades ahead of its time. Only a few of his ideas have started
to be copied in the last 5-10 years.
I used to talk to him for hours on the phone. Great guy.
These last two designs are proper applications of the frame-and-skin method of construction. That is, there is a very lightweight frame that supports fabric or film--a very flexible material possessing only tensile strength--almost completely lacking in compressive strength (or their combination: cantileverage).
You'll notice that the other designs are all shell constructions. That is, they are frameless. Why? Because frames should not be used to hold up materials that can hold themselves up. There is no integrity in that approach. I mean I find it a shame to put up a frame, then hang on it a rigid or semi-rigid material which, by itself, could physically hold up the whole building. While this approach DOES have the advantages of requiring no imagination or economy on the part of the owner, builder, or designer, I chose designs that embody: a dynamic elegance bordering on anti-gravity; simplicity any 5 year old can grasp; and an economy that any schmuck can achieve.
Sites
Tribal Wish Adrian Wolfe's obscure, 10-year collection of essays on his 30-year quest to live in
organic intimacy with others. This effort evolved into Gooble Dell, his home (and mine at present) in Eugene, Oregon, one of the oddest
human menageries around. If Willy Wonka were a homeless man who camped in a house with his friends, this would be the house.