-
Re: Living house
Thu, June 21, 2007 - 1:28 AMhmm. totally sceptical. this seems like ivory tower design to me. buildings like this are not a solution to the environmental crisis we are facing in planning and housing, unless the plants are GM to grow unnaturally fast, which will create new problems.
there is a century old tradition of arboreal shelter in australia, where vines are trained on meshes over buildings. it works as a addition to the structure and facade of a real building. this is neither a new concept nor a viable one. i'm surprised a reputable organisation like MIT is presenting us with this kind of utopian fairytale design as any kind of real world ecological solution.
the trees arent even forming the house in the cover image, theyre just trained on top of a gridshell building (how many decades would this take??). whats the point? why not grow them next to the house and prevent all the dramas of massive root growth constricting, crushing, penetrating and blocking in the little blob gridshell.
not impressed. annoyed. -
-
Re: Living house
Thu, June 21, 2007 - 9:44 AMOh, I think it is fun!
I spend all my professional time being a grumpy "natural" builder, convincing people that square is better than round, extra labor is impractical, and conventional looking structures are necessary if we are going to effectively address the world's housing needs. At the same time, I try to integrate as many local, non-toxic, low impact, handmade and "natural" techniques as possible into my work.
I'm familiar with the argument that this kind of utopian thinking is impractical, but I don't want to discourage anyone from following their creative ideas. Who knows? Twenty years ago, most people laughed at buildings made of straw.
I'm more skeptical that giant institution like MIT is going contrbute good building techniques. And I am really skeptical that the vinyl council is going to loose its grip on Habitat for Humanity... -
-
Re: Living house
Sun, May 4, 2008 - 8:25 AMNot exactly round, but definitely handmade - I remember being impressed with this woman's efforts:
www.backwoodshome.com/article...h27.html -
-
Re: Living house
Sun, May 4, 2008 - 11:59 AMImpressive indeed.
A great example of feminine stamina and resourcefulness...
I have an a pentagonal sauna at my residence that was built with the steel cable in the wall method as well.
The walls cant out from the base and thus could not be toe nailed effectively so the cable holds the walls in place at the roof line.
The pentagonal cap has a pentagonal skylight in the center as well.
There is an odd shaped polygonal window in one wall.
All materials were recycled except the roofing shingles.
Seats ten comfortably. Wood stove heat. -
-
Re: Living house
Sun, May 4, 2008 - 3:34 PMThat sounds like a dodecahedron Stephen... I think... and it sounds like the walls canting out would make good seats. Clever idea! -
-
Re: Living house
Sun, May 4, 2008 - 8:58 PMThe walls canted out do make for good seating and that was the idea ,but it's not a dodecahedron.
Only the cap is pentagonal,and the floor.
A true dodecahedron is made from 12 pentagons:like this:
sacredgeometry.tribe.net/photo...a86e9e
-
-
-
-
-
Re: Living house
Thu, June 21, 2007 - 9:45 AMDitto,
I was shocked as well that MIT had anything to do with this.
It's got to be some sort of joke really...
It's just a bit of photoshop anyway.
And not even that good. -
-
Re: Living house
Fri, June 22, 2007 - 7:57 AMWe could built that Stephen.
With my dome skills and your metal skills.
Big budget, no sense to it, but we could do it.
Domes are where it is at on many levels the the trees on the roof is sorta nonsense.
Grass, or other plants sure, but trees?
Bliss
Jason
-
-
Re: Living house
Fri, June 22, 2007 - 10:51 AMYeah, I'm somewhat skeptical too, but I love living roofs, so why not living structures. On further reading (because I wondered what would grow fast enough to 'build' such a structure) I found that the designer is investigating using a plant native to the middle east that grows with lattice like branches. Then that brings up concern of use of non-native species. I couldn't find any info on what insulative materials would be used if it was built in the northern midwest or in the mountains.
It reminds me of a concept car, not necessarily meant to be exactly as is, but some of the ideas may be used.
We do need to worry about the materials used. I heard somewhere, I think maybe on the PBS green building program which I forget the name of, that there is not necessarily enough clay in the world to house everyone. That was from a fairly traditionally trained architect. I'd like to verify that because clay and earth are my materials of choice. -
-
Re: Living house
Fri, June 22, 2007 - 1:57 PMEarth materials are Superabundant. Stone is probably most abundant, though clay , sand, and the like is present in VAST, Vast quantities. Use local materials.... clay isn't easily gotten just everywhere... wood or stone is more accessible in many places. Concrete may be considered ungreen by many, but its an incredibly strong, durable, and versatile material.... especially for an architectural sculptor like myself. The energy required to produce it from limestone (super-super abundant) is not terribly great.
Factor in the energy to produce the food to feed the people that build the structure. It makes sense to build with the most durable materials (like concrete, steel, wood, & stone) in timelessly artful ways that inspire... rather than nitpick and choose marginal materials that may fail in 25-100 years if not properly maintained... or end up building artless structures (that may be demolished as an ugly experiment) because sculptural materials like concrete and steel are deemed too 'energy intensive'... ....not so in terms of the big picture. -
-
Re: Living house
Fri, June 22, 2007 - 10:48 PMGood points all Leslie,
I'm a metal guy so naturally I think about using that material. Aluminum is the most prevalent metal on planet earth ,if you can believe it. But it's so costly and complicated to produce that it's actually more expensive than steel(not to mention some of it's toxicity).even though iron is not half as prevalent...
Choosing for the future is ever so more complicated ,and gets no easier as time goes on... -
-
Re: Living house
Sat, June 23, 2007 - 8:04 AMIron is hugely present, yes, and not difficult to extract... but I don't advocate it's use in Massive amounts for towering nightmares....... just more to facilitate construction of 2-4 storied constructions of the kinds of architectural masterpieces you see in Barcelona...... helping support stone and cast stone sculpture and imaginative spaces.... and things like roof ornaments. Art nouveau architecture.... or Craft Nouveau Architecture, if I may possibly coin a term.... has anyone else ever heard that moniker applied to architectural works? -
-
Re: Living house
Sat, June 23, 2007 - 8:41 AMHehehehh,
Funny you should mention those Leslie... -
-
Re: Living house
Sat, June 23, 2007 - 9:55 AMWhat is wrong with this idea, the idea that your house is living, rather than the forge ideal of a man? I would put forth that in fact, we should learn to create living houses, where we can live in houses that don't require poison to maintain their footprint. I.E. Wood requires termite protection etc. So, this idea of a living house, that creates a web for other forms of life besides that of humans is to me, ideal.
And, I really don't see what you mean about photoshop.. It looks like 3D modeling and high tech animation. Do you think you can do that in photoshop? Maybe, if you try, but it would look like a collage, rather than this diagram looking model. It looks like they have been thinking about this for some time, and if they can combine bobinga trees, Baobob trees, and Bass wood, perhaps they could form house from these. But I think it is even possible to bio engineer a tree form that grows over night, and I think this could be acceptable, if this got over grown, then it could be a form of biology that gives more than it takes. -
-
Re: Living house
Sat, June 23, 2007 - 12:54 PMI don't think there's any real objection to those concepts Shadoan. All very worthy, real and relevant considerations for future house design. The sticky wicket is EXECUTION and the fine tuning of our dreams with the constraints of reality.
My take on that image was that it was more of a comic book-like concept presentation.The assignment MUST have been ;"push the parameters of your imagination to their illogical end ,for this image,and have fun with it".
This is my own prejudice for sure,and I accept responsibility for it. I would not want to live in that house. I can SEE that by the image.
Just as when I look at (Starck furniture ,for instance),I KNOW it's not comfortable...Having been a MAKER nearly all my life ,I often intuitively KNOW when when I see a contrivance ,that it will not stand the test of time...Just my own viewpoint,not trying to push this upon anyone else. -
-
This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Living house
Sun, June 24, 2007 - 8:15 AMEXECUTION!
Yep, that is what it is all about.
You not only have to dream up, R&D, and be able to build the ultra house you have to have the time, energy and money to build it.
For example, monolithic domes, I have been working on them and doing the R&D for a while, as have others.
The system is on place and doable, AND the banks are almost impossible to get on board, not enough comps.
So, it is going to take a mega combined effort or a rich person to get any big new idea going and my guess is that in my lifetime it will NOT be a genetically engineered tree.
Maybe I am too pragmatic, althought I did build the firste leag strawbale in my county about 14 years ago.
Anyway, the pic in the sky stuff is great but I am a dreamer who wants to see it done, DONE., and so often here I see stuff that is so far out that it seems that the more grounded, realistic and timely solutions get skipped over for big dreams.
EXECUTION, yes, dream big but if all we do is daydream not much really gets done in the here and now.
Jason -
-
Unsu...
Re: Living house
Mon, June 25, 2007 - 5:23 PMThere's dreamers and there's doers. In my opinion, we need them both.
This project looks to me like a project from the MIT architectural school. Part of the architects' education is flexing our imagination. Of course, to bring that imaginary idea into reality is another part of our education. But we would have a very boring built world if our imagination wasn't stretched to the limits occasionally.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Re: Living house
Mon, April 21, 2008 - 7:02 PMEven though iron is not especially abundant throughout the earth, junk yards, garbage dumps, and other such place are VERY abundant. Wouldn't it be prudent to mine these places for the iron and steel that have been thrown away.It shouldn't be TOO costly to melt down these rusted pieces of metal and recycle them.
MP & BB
John
))0((
-
-
Re: Living house
Mon, June 25, 2007 - 1:32 PMI like the possilibilities of concrete. Thanks for bringing up the point of durability. For cob houses to withstand the ages, they must be maintained by folks. Gone are the days of the house raisings where maintaining the home was part of daily life. In an age when we seek convenience concrete is a viable option. -
-
Re: Living house
Mon, June 25, 2007 - 2:11 PMA nice compromise, if you really like the idea of cob, is to build columns (posts) of wood, concrete, brick, stone, or steel, and fill in between them with cob. With a concrete bond beam on top of that (with rebar) you can place a barrel vault, dome or semi-dome, or just a frame of wood or metal. Post and beam construction is the very best way to design in most cases (maybe all real world cases that I would consider).
Living structures might make sense as glorified garden trellises or tree houses... but more of a curiosity than a solution that I see as viable in general....not that I wouldn't want to try and grow a gazebo someday.
. -
-
Re: Living house
Tue, January 1, 2008 - 12:49 PMHere's someone who's playing with this concept: arborsmith.com/ -
-
Re: Living house
Tue, January 1, 2008 - 1:05 PMI made a visual barrier from Eucalyptus saplings tied in a series of knots in a long row. Occasionally you see whole fences for cattle in this area that are made in this way with mature trees...Unfortunately my row was too close to the street and threatened to interfere with the telephone and power lines so PG&E bought the tiny strip from my landlord and cut them all down. But it works quite well and Eucalyptus grow very quickly here. The saplings are quite flexible and if tied tightly together will eventually "merge"...
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Re: Living house can go even further
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 8:56 PMIve thought about this kind of thing a lot. I can't tell much from those diagrams, but they are "neat" LOL! I think a lot about: if and when our genetic science gets us there, we can genetically engineer a "tree" that will grow in a required shape, like a flat wall, and have several grow together to form a house, or even just one tree to form a house. It would be alive, and it would live and die, and everything would happen right there. No building and no materials, etc. With stem cell type research going on, where they can grow cells to become any organ, I'm sure this kind of idea could more easily be applied to plants. Maybe? Maybe not, but that's where my imagination takes me. I like this idea, but it doesn't go far enough. But I do like the basic idea of a "living house". -
-
Re: Living house can go even further
Mon, April 21, 2008 - 5:48 AMs MIT Media Lab plagiarizing Paul Laffoley?
You be the judge!
www.kentgallery.com/lafdas.htm
bldgblog.blogspot.com/2005/09...aus.html
www.dilettantepress.com/artist...ey.html -
-
Re: Living house can go even further
Mon, April 21, 2008 - 5:56 AMwww.treehugger.com/files/20...ehous.php
It makes so much sense to have a living house, because currently most buildings not only cut off sunlight and air from the Earth they sit upon... They also poison it with pesticides (plugs and oils poured into the ground...) as REQUIRED by insurance!
We have to work on the insurance companies to get them to open up the minds of their clients!
I am putting together a package to take to local insurance companies to help them understand that they don't have to pour pesticides into the Earth. any one want to help?
-
-
-
Re: Living house
Thu, May 15, 2008 - 1:21 AMso, Mitchel Joachim, the design of the "fab tree hab" is speaking at the Evergreen state College in Olympia, WA , if anyone in the area is interested. its free and its next thursday at 6m. www.evergreen.edu/synergy -
-
Re: Living house
Sat, May 17, 2008 - 1:36 AMwhy are methods like this nessecary when we have cob and straw bale?
when such easy and cheap and ecologically and socially sensitive methods are available, my question is why do we seek other alternatives?
whats the motivation?
yeah the synergy event is great. it happens every year... and paul stamets speaks there and is usually a great time.
if you can attend do so!
-
-
Re: Living house
Thu, June 5, 2008 - 3:04 AMi am a stone mason with 7 year's hands on in green building the structure does not need to be alive for the home to be living i like to build my networks and divuldge info slowly but we should all take a look at recent advances in bio mimicry when we think of the next generation of housing i am all ready there is any one joining me -
-
Re: Living house
Thu, June 5, 2008 - 5:50 PMI am way into bio-mimicry,
as design inspiration both for form and function. -
-
Re: Living house
Fri, June 6, 2008 - 2:23 AMbio mimicry is where its at...
-
-
