From: Patrick Salsbury (salsbury_at_sculptors.com)
Date: 08/21/99
Message-Id: <199908211535.IAA23719@bootstrap.sculptors.com> Subject: Re: PVC domes (was Lima domes) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 08:35:47 -0700 From: Patrick Salsbury <salsbury_at_sculptors.com>
Cross-posted from DomeHome to DomeSteading
>
> Francisco writes:
>
>
> > Let me check the URL about Pat Salbury's domes maybe I can get there
> > even more ideas to juggle with. You know that Peru is a highly seismic
> > zone and in any moment (not to sound paranoid) we can win "the big one"
> > and use portable domes as shelters. Scary but true.
>
> JMR responds:
> There's been a longstanding line of discussion on Pat's DomeSteading List
> about the development and use of domes as disaster-relief housing. Maybe you
> could subscribe there and inject some new life into it? Every time I hear
> about a new disaster (like the recent earthquakes in Turkey) I wish we were
> moving faster on this.
>
As do I. The terror in Turkey seems mostly over, but the horror is just
beginning. I've been following the news on Turkey fairly closely, and it's
nasty. About 2 million people have been sleeping under the stars every night,
because they're afraid to go into the buildings. There are still many
after-shocks, and things are unstable. This is one of the primary reasons I
really don't like concrete as a building material. It's H*E*A*V*Y.
The most recent count I've heard is that more than 10,000 are dead, and
they're expecting about 30-35,000 more. The tremendous heat is causing the
bodies to decompose rapidly, which is going to bring on massive disease.
I realized last night, on the drive home, that to really be effective in
helping with disaster relief, we're probably going to need more than just the
food/shelter/water systems. You need medical teams, lots of them.
Heavy-machinery operators who can pull 17-ton chunks of concrete off of
rubble-piles to get to the people trapped underneath.
Rebuilding infrastructure is all fine and good after the disaster is over,
but in Turkey, the disaster is really just beginning. It started with that
earthquake, and will probably continue for months, if not years.
> I have yet to see anybody exploit tensegrity as a temporary shelter. Yet,
> it's probably the most economical way to build.
>
> jmr
Tensegrity is a very economical way to build, and it's very complicated to
deal with all those struts & tendons. For each strut in a common spherical
variety, you end up with 4 tendons (2, if you design it differently) per
strut. That leaves you with 5 components (or 3) for each one you'd have in a
geodesic. Geodesics are merely the limit condition that tensegrities approach
as their struts get closer and closer together.
To simplify this, John Atkins and I explored ways of unifying those many
pieces in a simpler fashion, which was easy to manufacture, and easy to
assemble. What we came up with was the basic strut design I use in the Synergy
Ball. (That's a spherical model, but it could be adapted to any shape, as can
tensegrities.)
We came up with a single piece, which structurally incorporated the 5
elements into one diamond-shaped strut. We used paper and paperboard, but it
can easily be applied to any planar material. (You need hinges on the
middle-line of the diamond if you're building out of something large and
inflexible, like wood, or slabs of marble. Stamped sheet-metal would probably
function just as paper would, since it flexes.) As with some of my other
projects, this one can be stamped out of cardboard (or Corrulite ) presses by
the hundreds of thousands. It can be shipped flat in small packages, and built
on-site to enclose a large volume of space. You still need some sort of cover
sheeting, but various plastics and/or tarps would do in an emergency.
You can see pictures of some of the models I made, as well as a link to the
production model of the kit, at http://reality.sculptors.com/~salsbury/Synergy/
index.html
--
Pat
___________________Think For Yourself____________________
Patrick G. Salsbury - http://reality.sculptors.com/~salsbury/
Check out the Reality Sculptors Project: http://reality.sculptors.com/
---------------------------------------------------------
Thinking for yourself can be painful. It is easier to follow the lead of
popular people than to think for oneself and make one's own decision; but the
people one chooses to follow may not have accurate information.
-Nadja Adolf <nadja_at_node.com>