Re: spectacular and serene

[Dwayne <ddraig at pobox dot com>]

Ted Ledbetter wrote:
> 
> ...i agree with both of you about earth-sheltered housing, living
> sustainably and tension-structures...i have been living year round
> for the past five years in a series of dome-tents...and i plan to build
> an earth-sheltered reinforced-concrete dome because i believe that
> a dome shape is the strongest form to be able to support an earthen
> "roof" and to support any animal or vehicular traffic across an
> earthen-roof...am i wrong about this?


Wow, this is a really fascinating idea to me. When I was about 9 or 10 I
was reading a book on solar-efficient houses and came across a reference
to an architect and his wife who built a house in the Rockies by
inflating a weather balloon and spraying cement over it. When the cement
was partly set they'd deflate the balloon, cut sections out of the
resultant cement hemisphere, and then re-inflate the balloon and repeat
the process, eventually giving a bunch of interlocked domes made of
cement. Looks incredibly cool, was easily done by two people with a
compressor, and produces and incredibly efficient house. One person's
body heat would warm up one of the rooms, and in one of the photos there
was a woman sitting down and reading a book in shorts and a T-shirt ands
outside there was several feet of snow. I have never seen the book
since. Argh.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine who gave up practising as an
architect to become a hippy, and while he thought it was a nifty way to
build pointed out that apparently cement outgasses bad gasses until it
fully cures, which can be 20 years or more.


So, your mileage may vary on this, but I am still pretty inspired.  In
the photos I saw, they had cut the doors and windows to be round, and
sort of flared into the walls so there are no sharp edges anywhere.  the
only straight line is where the wall meets the floor.  Really beautiful
environment to live in, I thought.


Re-reading your message: do you mean to build a cement dome and then put
earth on top of it? 
The house I am describing was entirely above-ground, and seemed to be
extraordinarily good at retaining warmth.

Dwayne
-- 
    mailto:ddraig at pobox dot com      http://i.am/dwayne

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