Documenting a personal quest for non-toxic housing.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004Site Update
I have added some description and illustrations to the Final Project Design page concerning the research into the use of Prolyte truss components as mentioned previously. The illustrations detail a pavilion home design using a linear room space layout based on a 30m x 10m structure using 38 primary truss components and a simple slab foundation. This looks like an economical and easy structure to build, especially since the truss framing literally plugs together with no tools and everything else attaches with bolts and screws. How much this will cost depends in the truss component prices which I am still waiting for Prolyte's US distributor to provide.
I really find it difficult to imagine any building system easier than this except for a robotically fabricated monolithic concrete pavilion with a formed-in-place grid of plug-in sockets to mount everything else. (a scheme I've proposed for marine colony and space habitat structures) Of course, plug-in architecture is nothing new but it's always puzzled me why the obvious advantages have always remained elusive to the developers of mainstream housing. After all, for all the monotony of the suburban habitat, house interiors are renovated more frequently today than ever in human history. Why not engineer the bloody things with this in mind? What would be so wrong with a suburban house structure as a free-standing loft apartment? It's easier and cheaper to build and it creates a plug-in component and appliance market of tremendous scale. But then a thousand 'better ways' have come and gone in just the past 50 years. We never 'get it'.
In other news, I recently enjoyed some correspondence with retired cohousing project designer Rick Cowlishaw who discussed some ideas for pavilion housing suitable for the Hawaiian climate. Among his many suggestions was the notion of a pumicecrete pavilion using an inverse-pitch roof that allows for the collection of rainwater in a centralized tank. A novel idea that would be very attractive -giving the home the appearance of an enormous flower- but probably expensive to build compared to simpler structures. Many of his suggestions seemed less appropriate for someone on my marginal income but he did offer some very useful cost-saving ideas. For instance, he suggested that one could readily eliminate glass wall enclosures altogether in the mild Hawaii climate, using only simple sliding screen panels like the traditional shogi screens. However, the periodic severe weather is too much for this to withstand, thus he also suggested such things as centralized concrete walled waterproof storage bunkers to house the entire contents of the home during extreme weather. That would seem to more than eliminate any savings the use of screens might offer.
