LOL, thunder thief!!! Here's a vid:)
> > > American Dream Home Version 2.0 Alpha > Demo installation of next-generation micro-home at Burning Man 2008 > And some notes: - This was an experiment. First yurt I built, and I really didn't know if an unattended 1.5" Thermasheath yurt would stand up to hundreds or thousands of people right in the center of an extreme event like Burning Man. It totally stood up. The structure is solid. Hundreds signed the guestbook, and everyone seemed to really like the space. - It was even more of an experiment because my wife Glimmer got to go early this year while I stayed here until Monday morning with the kids. She, Justin, and Sawdust deployed it without me. I sent diagrams and ordered lists for assembly, but they got misplaced so they winged it. They forgot to install a little hanger at the roof peak to hold a spinning mirror light from my 2004 Man pavilion installation, so to get around that later without climbing on the roof, this got to be the first hexayurt in history that was completed with the aid of a man lift! They got it done though, and it met my vision beautifully: juxtaposition against the Man skyscraper. - We built with 6' walls. No comparison to 4'! The space felt huge, and the entry/exit comfortable. Only way to go IMO. - Thanks to Tommy, all the edges were correctly beveled and fit/sealed tightly. - Instead of taping all edges and assembling on playa, we made tape hinges to create one wall accordion and one roof accordion using Justin's taping approach, which rocked. We made the hinges with 6" bi- di tape, and taped any non-hinged edges with 3" bi-di. Then we covered all the tape exposed to sunlight with aluminum tape. This pre-fabbed accordion folder approach made deployment much faster. We ultimately decided the roof is better as two accordions that nest into a 4x8 for shipping. - We used 8 OSB sheets as a platform/floor. BAD idea! OSB edges shred and we had to pick up tons of tiny MOOP at the end. Plywood much better. - We anchored in two ways: 1) holes through OSB at inside corners, with plastic garden stakes driven through holes and a few inches into playa. The stakes protruded a few inches up through the wall/wall/roof/roof corners. A guy line went from the garden stake just above the roof to rebar a foot or so outboard of the yurt. 2) At the bottom of each wall center we used a little angle bracket to position the hinged wall center. The brackets were taped to the Thermasheath and screwed into the OSB. It was all rock solid until strike, when we removed most of the anchoring before striking the structure, and then things whited out so we left - a day later after Sunday & Monday dust storms the yurt was a bit shifted and warped, but not broken - see pic. In general, the rebars outboard were overkill. We found the structure quite strong, and it did not seem to need outboard guy lines to retain integrity against wind, but only needs hold-down force and sideways shifting prevention. My sense is that 3' rebars pounded 18" into playa at each corner with the other 18" taped to the corner would be sufficient, plus the angles at the wall centers. I really HATE outboard guy lines; besides the safety issues they make shelters look like tents instead of homes. - Door: we experimented with a full-height doorway and door made by cutting one 6' x 4' wide wall section into 1x6 and 3x6 sections. We used a simple near-flat door threshold channel at the bottom, and an aluminum "L" channel as a door header, both taped to the wall panels on either side of the door. While this approach makes sense and generally worked, we found that 1) it was challenging to cut the door height down to exactly fit, 2) during installation the yurt shifted and got anchored down in a manner that bent the threshold and tweaked the rectangularity of the door opening, so the door never fully closed again. It turned out this was a feature not a bug for a high-traffic installation:) Further design evolution to come... - Windows: we cut squares about 12x12" out of the top of the thermasheath, taped a 2' strip of flat aluminum channel across the top edge of the opening as window headers, and made tape hinges to attach the cut-outs as cat flaps. The intent was to fold them up and out and secure them to the roof with velcro, but the small velcro tabs did not stay on the roof due to dust, so the cat flaps flapped around whenever they were not closed - and survived fine. On the inside of the window openings, we used a tape hinge and velcro flap to provide transparent windows that open. They worked well but did not really seal in any explicit manner. - Air Conditioner: we used a garden sprayer and called it the air conditioner. Worked great and got oohs, aahs and good laughs. It did moisten the floor and furniture temporarily, which would be a killer in a moist climate. - Infrastructure: we tried several things: 1) cheap 4" dia solar powered vent fan near roof peak, with 4x10" filtered inlet near north side ground level: worked exceptionally well for ~$25. 2) stick-on lights: worked really well for a week, but would need lots of battery recharging for long-term use. 3) 5W solar cell, charge controller, deep cycle battery, and 12V LED lighting: worked very well; we used little rectangular LED matrices of ~40 LEDs that are sold on eBay for replacing auto and RV interior bulbs, and they are bright as hell - some people said the lighting was too bright, but I wanted it kind of bright to make the interior a safe public space at night - it was one of the few places on the playa that the BLM's infrared telescopes could not penetrate! A pair of these LED rectangles with dimmers would rock a dwelling yurt (one for room light and one on a cord for task light). 4) Night Watchman day/night sensor (12V) driving a pocket inverter to run sequenced red, white & blue LED nets on the exterior (360 total LEDs) - 2 different inverter products kept crapping out, as did the one on my art car. Definite weak point in 12V/120V systems. When inverters worked, the bling bling was very cool. Note that the 5W solar was not enough to run the bling, so we cheated by starting with a fully charged Trojan deep cycle battery that could jump half the trucks at DPW. - Furniture: Playatech, of course! www.playatech.com. This was a chill space; we have living space layouts defined too. - Thermal: the yurt performed exceptionally well. Radiant barriers are where it is at! Stayed cool, and during dust storms, with the cat flaps and door closed it was hard to tell there was a raging white out going on outside. The only thermal challenge was that during the day or warm nights when the yurt was full of people (we often had 10 or more) it would get too hot - the interior radiant barrier reflected too much body heat back at all the bodies! Ventilation helped at that point, but that many bodies just generate a lot of radiation. - Tape: it would be great to have a removable tape for the few seams that need to be done in the field on a folder. Cutting those seams at strike tends to slice the underlying panel material and edge sealing tape, which makes repeated deployment/strike cycles challenging. A tape that peels off would leave the original "as-shipped from the warehouse" accordions intact. Ideas sought. - Experiences: Glimmer organized the Great American Dream Lunch, and we served it at the Dream Home - Oscar Mayer bologna, Kraft American Cheese, Wonder Bread, French's Mustard, etc, with 5 gallons of margaritas. Standing at the door and saying "welcome home; it's time for lunch!", seeing the shocked and joyed reactions, and then connecting with at least 50 new friends over a silly lunch at our pseudo Home was an awesome thrill. - Another great thrill was theming the hell out of the installation to deliver this message to thousands of the worlds most radically creative innovators: "We build better improvised shelters for a week than 40% of humanity lives in all the time - and we need to do something about that." I was really glad the Beacon and BMIR picked up on it. I've already met some American Red Cross folks as a result of this project who are excited, so I do think the time for hexayurts is upon us. Hope the above helps you all, and I look forward to things you learned! Sunshine On Sep 14, 2008, at 5:20 AM, Vinay Gupta wrote: > > Here's a gallery of Sunshine's American Dream Home 2.0. > > http://picasaweb.google.com/PlayatechSunshine/2008_09_02_American_Dream_Home_V20# > > Please post your pictures or a link to your pictures, and any notes > you have on performance or lessons learned this year! > > Vinay > > > > > > > > > > -- > Vinay Gupta > Free Science and Engineering in the Global Public Interest > > http://hexayurt.com - free/open next generation human sheltering > http://hexayurt.com/plan - the whole systems, big picture vision > > Gizmo Project VOIP : (USA) 775-743-1851 > Skype/Gizmo/Gtalk : hexayurt > Icelandic Cell : (+354) 869-4605 > > "If it doesn't fit, force it." > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group. 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