01-29-2011, 06:29 PM
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.
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.