10 house - Recently Updated Pages

WWW.HUGG.COM

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 22:17:20 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Links

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:35:31 CST

EcoSpace Studios
http://www.noekdesign.com/
http://www.saunders.no/
http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com
http://www.summerwood.com/products/sheds/copper-creek.html
http://www.rosschapin.com/Plans/plans.html

http://www.dexigner.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3972
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/14746147.htm?source=rss&channel=kansascity_entertainment
Ferrous Park Architectural Design Competition. " Jurors pick proposals from two or more firms to add sculptural flair and environmentally conscious design to Ferrous Park, an artist-owned plot in the 1800 block of Locust Street." " One criterion for the designers was to maximize the use of prefabricated elements. Partly intended to lower construction costs, that also might help demonstrate the potential attraction of prefab building for higher-style, repeatable designs." "Design originality and concepts relating to sustainable design — recycled materials and energy efficiency, for example — are high on the list of expectations. The project will incorporate geothermal heating and cooling systems for all of the units. Designs for each unit are expected to result in construction costs of $180,000. In the plan, five of the townhouse units would be sold as finished condominiums, probably in the range of $275,000 to $325,000 each."

Members

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:02:31 CDT

If you'd like to join the project or just be kept up to date please add your name and info below. Click the EasyEdit button above in order to modify this text field and add your name. Please use the format below as to avoid being spammed.

Member list

Paul Bloch - designer
openartist (at) gmail (dot) com

tech.samaritan (at) gmail (dot) com

landhandrews (at) yahoo (dot) com

luke (at) whitehallcoop (dot) org

hexayurt@gmail.com - Vinay Gupta, designer of the Hexayurt refugee shelter

jcorkran (at) innerecho (dot) com

adambensmith (at) hotmail (dot) com

arfitact (at) mac _dot. com

philfinds (at) yahoo (dot) com

mwyoung (at) qwest (dot) com

Necessary Rooms/Spaces

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:32:47 CDT

Basic Defined Spaces:

Living Area

-must contain seating for at least 2 people along with a small to medium table, this table would allow the living area to double as dining area.

Sleeping Area

-should be able to fit 1 full grown adult, mostlikely a "twin" size bed, and hold up the weight of 2 adults plus mattres

Cooking/Eating Area

-must contain sink, stovetop, and workspace. to save space the workspace may also double as a cutting board

Bathroom Area

-must contain toilet, sink, and shower. to save money the sink should be made from aluminum or other cheap. The shower should be maid from a cheap plastic stall- plastic made from something other than oil.

Home

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:43:27 CDT

10 House is in the news! We've appeared on treehugger.com as well as nowpublic.com! Wahoo! Thanks for the coverage and support!

***For people who are interested in joining the project add your name and email (name (at) address (dot) com) to the Members page. Soon an mailing list will be created as well as conference calls.***

Introduction

This project codenamed "10 House" (10K for a perfect 10 house, aka the "wiki house") will be a repository of information, methods, and materials to build a green house for approx. $10,000. Can it be done? The goal is to find out. After we've hammered out the costs on paper the next step would be to have one built!

The first step is identifying what we want our house to have. What is a reasonable goal? A bathroom, kitchen space, social area, and bedroom area? I say area because the spaces may bleed into each other rather than being seperated by walls.

The sky is the limit! Feel free to jump in!

My name is Paul and all of what you'll find here currently is what I came up with within a period of day. So pardon the disorganization and lack of direction! ;) Personally I'm still in the brewing phase of dreaming solutions and projecting futures in my mind. This is part of other ideas I've been attempting to develop within the past few years which I hope to post about at some point in the future.

Forecast

On a side note, I could imagine this site or one spawned from it as a recipe book for green living. Based upon the specified budget we can construct green living arrangements that fall within that budget. So later on we could make a listing of housing solutions based upon price, location, and other factors. I can imagine a website where you plug in certain variables and it pops out a recipe for a green building solution. Perhaps different kinds of buildings could also be classified and easily searchable. For instance, if I wanted to build an eco-friendly shed or greenhouse for $1,000 what are my options?

This site may also move soon if it is felt that the project warrants it's own more official home online. A wiki was made here in order to initiate the process instantly with available tools (Which is highly recommended to anyone with a good idea). I've already found some issues with the wiki software which makes using this site a bit annoying and cumbersome.

Roadmap

After the initial foundation is laid conceptually on this page, organzing the site will be necessary.
I think a good model of future development would be to follow the "design thinking" process as defined in wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking)

Define
Research
Ideate
Prototype
Choose
Implement
Learn

Sources of Inspiration

After this site was posted on Hugg.com the immediately a news article was posted about a man who built a house for 20,000 US dollars! Talk about Synchronicity! And not soon after another article was posted about people making homes out of sheds for approximately $12,000! Now we're getting somewhere! Not that I think living in a shed is the answer to affordable housing but it brings up several novel ideas:

1) Holonic housing arrangements
This means bringing the idea of modular to a whole new level. A holon is a whole made of parts that are also wholes made of parts (think atoms, molecules, humans, etc.) This could translate into assessing the costs of different structures that where designed for different purposes and could then "plug-in" to each other. Using established standards or creating new ones these holons could be built as a family or a community expands. This would also be beneficial for another reason . . .

2) Development based on available resources
This basically means via using the method of a holonic housing arrangement the building party is capable of building based on current funds and build upon the structure as more funds/resources become available. But this has even larger implications where if multiple people where sharing costs they could build a structure that benefited both of them such as a communal bathroom or kitchen space that was seperate from the more personal living quarters. And this could prove to be an interesting social catalyst which brings us to the next point.

3) Redifining ourselves and reinventing community
In a time where people hardly know their own neighbors it's needless to say that as the postmodern society progresses there is a tendency torward increased narcissism and isolation from the true sense of community and being a responsible participant in a community. What if through the holonic clustering of housing and utilities we created situations where individuals shared common spaces more frequently therefore we would feel firsthand the impact our lives have on others in realtime, through the degree of responsibility and care we bring to our holonic community? An article was recently posted as LiveScience.com (http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060623_close_friends.html) that stated that people are losing touch with close friends. Quoted from the article:

“The evidence shows that Americans have fewer confidants and those ties are also more family-based than they used to be,” said Lynn Smith-Lovin, professor of sociology at Duke University.
“This change indicates something that’s not good for our society," Smith-Lovin said. "Ties with a close network of people create a safety net. These ties also lead to civic engagement and local political action."
The findings are published in the June 2006 issue of the journal American Sociological Review.
The research also showed that people who talk only to family members about important matters increased from 57 percent to 80 percent over the two decades, while the number who depend totally on a spouse rose from 5 percent to 9 percent.
The results are based on responses from more than 1,400 American adults to the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago since 1972.

Shared utilities would have another added benefit:

4) Environmentally sound living systems
Throught the decrease in repeated utilities, buildings, and more the burden of maintaining those resources is distributed more throughout the community and lighten the load on each family/living unit as well as lighten the environmental impact of each unit.

The small-budget housing can be found here:
http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/

One design candidate is the Hexayurt, a small materials-efficient building design which is already in the public domain.
http://10house.wetpaint.com/page/Hexayurt

Hexayurt

Vinay — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:28:32 CDT

http://mindismoving.org/hexayurt/

The Hexayurt is a super minimal building: 160 square feet, made mostly from whole 4' x 8' sheets of plywood or other appropriate materials. The walls are made from two 4'x8' sheets side by side, forming an 8' square. The roof is made from 4'x8' sheets cut along the diagonal to form triangles 8' high and 8' wide at the base. This geometry was designed for use in refugee shelters but would scale to a microbuilding very well.

In a permanent building, one would do standard 2"x6" framing and use conventional building and insulation. techniques. Beams would be cut using a compound miter saw so the angles formed by the intersecting pieces would be precisely machined, which makes for a very fast, very simple assembly. Hardipanel (a cement board product) coated with an elastomer would be the tool of choice for the walls and roof, I think.

It might also be possible to do a stressed skin plywood approach and then shingle it, but that could well suck.

The design could also be "stretched" - take a Hexayurt and cut it in half. Then insert additional 8'x8' "panels" to move it from being a standard hexagon to an elongated one. This would roughly double the available floor space for only slightly more building materials. Add a composting toilet and you have a semi-autonomous building.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_building

COST ESTIMATES

$360 - 18 sheets of facing material, at $20 per sheet

$800 - Insulated Concrete Slab foundation (nominally $5 per square foot) - but could be posts instead. Insulated concrete slab would be preferred, however, to give the building some thermal mass.

$360 - 36 two-by-six 8' long for framing

$200 - elastomeric skin product (see the sealents by AFM - the people who make SafeCoat paints)

$300 - guess at costs for insulation

$1000 - windows, doors, trim

- so we're talking around $3000 of materials before we get into interior fixtures and so on. If the design was to have a sleeping loft, there would be a cost associated with the stairs and the support system for that loft also.

Intellectual Property
The Hexayurt design is in the Public Domain. It was placed in the public domain after Hurricane Katerina.

cob

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:52:35 CDT

Questions and Answers About Cob

At Cob Cottage Company we have found that many visitors and workshop participants have similar questions about cob. Here are some of the most common questions. What is cob? The word cob comes from an Old English root meaning "a lump or rounded mass". It's a traditional building technique using hand formed lumps of earth mixed with sand and straw. Cob is easy to learn and inexpensive to build. It dries to a hardness similar to lean concrete and is used like adobe to create self supporting, load bearing walls. Cob has been used for centuries throughout Western Europe, even in rainy and windy climates, as far north as the latitude of Alaska. This ancient technology doesn't contribute to deforestation, pollution or mining, nor depend on manufactured materials or power tools. Cob is nontoxic and completely recyclable, which is important in this era of environmental degradation, dwindling natural resources and chemical contaminants.

How is cob different from adobe?

Cob is one of many methods for building with raw earth, the world's commonest construction material. It surpasses related techniques such as adobe, rammed earth pise, and compressed earth bricks both in ease of construction and freedom of design. Since you don't need straight forms or rectilinear molds, cob lends itself to organic shapes: curved walls, arches and vaults. Building with cob is a sensory and aesthetic experience like sculpting with clay. You can add on, cut out, or reshape at any time, even after the cob is dry. Unlike adobe, cob can be built in cool damp climates like the Pacific Northwest: its resistance to rain and cold makes cob well suited in all but the coldest parts of America.

Why haven't I heard of cob before?

Cob is a recent arrival in the United States. Except for adobe in the Southwest, earthen building is virtually unknown here. In other parts of the world, cob and similar techniques have been popular for millennia. Throughout Western Europe, many of the picturesque stuccoed or whitewashed buildings are actually made of cob. In England there are tens of thousands of comfortable cob homes, many of which have been continuously inhabited for over 500 years. The durability and comfort of these valuable houses has sparked a renaissance in traditional cob centers such as Devon, where cob homes are again being built.

Why doesn't it wash away in the rain?

Cob is very resistant to weathering. Because of its porous nature, it withstands long periods of rain without weakening. However, too much exposure is best avoided by the "boots and cap" strategy: wide roof eaves to protect the walls and an impervious foundation. In windy areas a lime-sand plaster is traditionally used to protect exterior cob walls.

What about earthquakes?

No building system is earthquake proof under every seismic condition, but part of the Great Pyramids and the Great Wall of China are made of earth. The oldest inhabited structure in the U.S., Taos Pueblo, is earthen construction. A cob mansion in Nelson, New Zealand has survived without a crack, two major earthquakes which destroyed the town around it. In South Yemen, in a fault zone, there are Medieval earthen houses 13 stories high. Since a cob building is one monolithic unit reinforced by straw, it has no weak straight-line mortar joints, making it stronger than brick or block. The curve and taper we give "Oregon cob" walls make them even stronger.

Isn't it cold and damp inside? Winter visitors to our cob buildings in Oregon often comment on how warm and dry they feel. Cob walls one to two feet thick provide immense thermal mass and adequate insulation, ideal for passive solar construction. Cob structures require little additional heating in winter and remain cool and comfortable on hot summer days. As it is fireproof, cob can be used for building ovens, stoves and chimneys. One of our favorite designs is a cob bench or bed heated by the flue of a wood burning stove.

How fast can I build with cob?

The rate of building depends on weather and the size of your workforce; in dry weather we build up to a foot of height per day. In wood construction, the frame is a tiny part of the work, but a cob wall once built is finished apart from the plaster. Pipes and wires are laid directly in place and there's no need for sheet rock, tape, spackling, sanding, painting, sheathing, or vapor barriers. But racing to build fast is missing the point and half the fun. Unlike conventional modern building with its frenetic pace, power tools, and scope for errors and accidents, cob-making is a peaceful, meditative and rhythmic exercise. Building cob is easier and more enjoyable with a crew, so it lends itself to community projects, building parties and workshops.

What about building codes?

Codes today protect the industrial manufacturers of building components better than homeowners. Not surprisingly, there is no code for cob, though nowhere is earthen building prohibited. Many cob builders choose not to involve building officials and have had no problems. Legally permitted cob buildings are beginning to appear; there's considerable expense and paperwork involved, as with any permit.

What does a cob cottage cost? Cob is one of the cheapest building materials imaginable. Often the soil removed during site work is enough to build the walls. The owner-builder can supply the labor, inviting friends to join in the excitement of hand sculpting a house. With inventiveness and forethought, the costs of other components (doors, windows, roof, floors, etc.) can be extensively reduced. The Cob Cottage Company works primarily with recycled materials and handwork lumber. Using local materials such as poles, bamboo, stone, and cedar shakes, our second cottage was completed for $500, and has been lanto's and Linda's home for 3 years.

Does cob building require an expert?

Absolutely not! Once the basics are understood, cob building is amazingly simple. In a week long workshop you can learn how to select materials, prepare a mix, and build a wall. We can teach you everything you need to build your cob cottage: site selection, foundations, windows and doors, attachment of wood and other materials, detail work and finishing. Many course graduates with no previous building experience leave our workshops feeling confident and enthusiastic about building their own cob cottage.

How can I learn more about cob?

The only proven way to learn about cob building is to try it. The Cob Cottage Company offers hands-on cob construction workshops in most parts of North America. Contact us for our current schedule. We also supply videos and slides of finished cob buildings . Our web site is http://www.cobcottage.com/. We distribute a practical guide book, The Cobber's Companion and an informative illustrated reader, Earth Building and the Cob Revival. Our newsletter, the CobWeb. is available by subscription. To order any of these items, see our order form.

Ideate

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:40:42 CDT

Possible Construction Techniques:

Rammed Earth
Strawbale
Cob

Define

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:17:19 CDT

Build a green house for approx. $10,000

Research

openartist — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 02:27:46 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.