My friend Dr. Peter Buxton, who's got quite an interest in matters medical and humanitarian, send me a really interesting email with a quote from Winston Churchill about architecture (!) and some questions to ponder about Hexayurts.
================== > Vinay I've been browsing parts of your blog and note you have a > quote from Churchill. Here's another one for you from the great man: > > "We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us" > > He said this in association with the rebuilding of the House of > Commons after it was bombed in WW2. Some wanted to alter and > enlarge the chamber to allow every MP a seat. Churchill opposed > this as he felt that the crowded, slightly chaotic nature of the > House was essential to vigourous debate and that this was, in part, > caused by the design of the building. > > So how does a hexayurt shape us? And by us we could mean you (as > the designer), me (as an admirer), a displaced person (as a user). > > Something to ponder. Now, here, I have a confession to make: I'm not the kind of person who ever really thought about this at first. I figured out how to make a pretty good hut, and then went to work on replacing something that I was sure was frequently worse - tents - with huts where it was possible. I was very aware of the general critique of domes in the literature, best embodied by the classic "Smart But Not Wise" http://www.shelterpub.com/_shelter/smart_but_not_wise.html There's also a subtle laundry list of less esoteric dome issues: they leak, they're have bad acoustics and echo and so on. I've added some links to my (12 year old) discussion of those points below. So I wanted to open a thread on this. It's not something I've thought through, it's a deep and profound set of concerns, and it's one that I'm incredibly badly placed to appreciate being the inventor of the home. What do you make of it? Of course, this is a lot easier to see for people who've lived inside of one, but I'm sure some of you have made it to Burning Man etc. and, of course, down on the Factor e Farm there's an Open Source Ecologist living in one right now... Your thoughts, links, inspiration, insights and guesses, please! 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. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
