Gunite Bubbles

[Mitzi M]

Thanks Peter, that page was very cool~

The work in ferrocement makes me think of the incredible surrealist sculpture/architecture of Edward James. I found my way quite by accident to Xilitla as I was traveling through the Mexican mountains in a terrible storm one evening. I pulled off the highway up a dirt road and camped for the night there with the permission of the land's caretaker. In the morning, to my amazement, I found myself at Las Pozas, his surrealist garden constructed in the 1940's of old school kine concrete poured into intricately fashioned molds made of bamboo slats and wire.

Here's a cool video of the place - (I turned off the sound to view it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d48gIswwwQg

[Seeb]

the Stassens house pictures are very interesting. i have never tryed the shotcreteing against wire lath idea, not sure how - i use to build a couple of gunite spa/pools a year back east as a side line, but i always shot against forms or the ground

[Seeb]

Are there any engineers / architects around that will stamp ferocement building plans

[csgray]

This site had a lot of good information and great pictures of ferro cement and lightweight concrete work:
http://www.flyingconcrete.com/steve.htm

Carol

[Kapohocat]

quote:

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Originally posted by Seeb

Are there any engineers / architects around that will stamp ferocement building plans

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John the Architect here on Punaweb I think does. He stamps the plans Rob Tucker provides.

Catherine Dumond
Blue Water Project Management 808 965-9261

Dakineworkers.com

[Peter Epperson]

Any licensed architect or structural engineer can stamp drawings for a ferrocement structure. They will regard it as reinforced concrete and calculate the load and weight of steel required. That steel can be rebar or wire mesh or combination of the two so long as there is enough. Ray Keuning in HPP has engineered and stamped many structures for us.

[Peter Epperson]

Check out this gunite bubble. http://pacificgunite.com/new_page_3.htm This is a 10,000 gallon tank that we are building in Kehena. The gunite is done and now there is a decorative treatment coming.

[JohnS]

Aloha,

Jonathan Zimmerman was another inflate-and-spray dome architect. A builder friend of mine almost had a house of his design built in Fern Acres quite a few years ago. Apparently Zimmerman died in 2005 so his web site is gone but pix of and articles on his stuff are still out there of course.

One issue with round walled buildings (yurts and the like), and more so with true domes, is acoustics - that is, one hears most any sound from most anywhere in the space very well from anywhere else in the space. Partition walls don't do much to block that, unless they're full height.

Ditto Peter's recommendation of "A Pattern Language," and, the first volume in the series is "The Timeless Way of Building" and ought to be read before Pattern Language, otherwise it's like jumping straight to recipes without any understanding of kitchen or cooking implements etc. That is, it provides context for the patterns.

Another relevant book is "Places of the soul - architecture as healing art" by Christopher Day, a Welsh architect.

And of course "The hand sculpted house" by Evans, Smith and Smiley - though the building material of focus is cob, not particularly relevant here, the content on design of human living spaces is universally applicable.

Re right angles - houses with square corners actually have much wasted space in terms of use (in those very corners). Who here hangs out much in the corners of their square rooms? Mostly we put corner tables or knick-knack cabinets or the like in them. Video time-motion studies have been done that show how mostly nobody uses those spaces. Also show that we don't move much in straight lines except when we're forced to by rectilinear architecture.

Rounded corners, partly rounded spaces, and five or more sided spaces with good design give plenty of locations for normal furniture and fixtures and feel much more spacious than equivalent "square feet" in a rectangular configuration.

Psychologically, right angles are more or less neutral (though we don't spend time in them even so). Angles greater than 90 deg. are experienced as welcoming, warm, open, enjoyable. Angles less than 90 deg. are experienced as threatening, cold, closing, uncomfortable.

Also ditto Peter's comments on the ever-increasing ugliness and ignorance of context of most everything we build.