Earthships - A model for use of recycled materials in the desert?

I recommend looking at the website link below which will take you to some pictures of what are termed 'earthship houses'.

http://www.solarhomesonline.com/

These houses are bermed into the ground to provide thermal mass, but the wall structure is made from old tyres filled with dirt. The walls are stacked up and the roof is constructed of steel or wooden beams supported by the tyre walls. Some examples have even been totally submerged into the ground. Others (as shown) have domed roofs constructed by using a sand pile as formwork for a concrete cast. Of course the earthship houses are pretty radical and green - most of the time designed so they require no service link ups at all- totally self sufficient, even growing all their own vegetables. I think this could perhaps be a good solution to construction in the desert where transport of materials is expensive and we would like to use the thermal mass of the ground to protect from high daytime temps. Perhaps construction of part of the project out of tyres could make good use of old tyres littering the area? I'd really like to hear what you think of this concept and what ideas this may generate for you in terms of our Domus desert project.

Mosman 7 Preliminary Design Ideas/Principles for Jiln Bardi

Here are 3 preliminary design sketches for the Jiln Bardi site. The climate is hot-dry/arid. Design solutions to this climate as discussed in lectures may include:

• shade late morning/all afternoon;


• catch summer winds


• moisten air


• courtyard of heavy materials


• light colours


• wind scoops


• cooling from convection currents

These preliminary sketches show incorporation of some of these elements in various ways, however you may note that the sketches also show a strong interest in:

• sympathetic or appropriate response to landscape elements
• use of local/recycled materials
  

Mosman 7 Design Principles

Principles to be addressed in design:
- Use of screening/filtration of light
- Thermal Mass
- Ventilation/cross flow/natural evaporative cooling/wind scoops
- Sense of approach/enclosure
- Indigenous references

Scenario:
- Local meeting place
- Health/education/community outreach

Climatic conditions

Geography
-Sparse vegetation consisting of tough spinifex grass, hardy saltbush shrubs, spiny accacia and tall desert oaks.
- Animals are nocturnal, feeding at night. Animals include Bilbies/rabbits, Mulgara, thorny devils ( colorful spiny lizards)
- Land generally uninhabited, the minority used for mining or cattle grazing
- Soil is red sand.
- Generally flat with some sand dunes

Climate:
- Limited sporadic rain, Rainfall is low throughout. Generally patchy with many drought years often ending in monsoonal cloud mass. Yearly rainfall approx. 250mm. Evaporation rate is very high and makes up for the higher than normal desert rainfall. Almost all rain comes from monsoonal rain and occassionally tropical cyclone. Approx. 30-40 days of rain per year. Generally thunderstorms during the wet season (Nov-April)
- Summer day light hours from 8-10 hours per day.
- Summer average temp. 37-38 degrees (low end of scale). Nights cool down to cold
- Winter is short and warm. Average temp. 25-30 degrees with cool, almost frosty nights. It begins to warm up again by August.

Winds
- For the week past, winds have been very mild, generally calm and easterly

DOMUS - CLIMATE INVESTIGATION

Investigations of Pros and Cons of the selected climate zone for a dwelling can help identify recurring themes associated with the environment. For the Domus Project, Aletha, Amy and Catherine have teamed up and the results of their preliminary climate investigation follows:Recurring themes identified by the brainstorming shown above include: Thermal Massing (to cope with swaying diurnal temperatures experienced in hot/dry climates; Filtering of Light; Framing of Views and Protection from Wind and Sun.

Minima - Final Design

My Minima developed from the idea of transportable accommodation, thus a caravan. Once I had this idea in my head, I found it hard to shake it, so all my ideas were pretty similar. I then looked as ways to try and demount and minimise my space and developed the idea of a box inside a box, that would create more floor area by pulling apart. In the end it worked better my cutting the outer shell in half and having each section slide out from the inner shell.

All shells were to be constructed from high strength plastic and the interior amenities box to be made from fibreglass. The layout of furniture and fixtures inside would involve a core unit (the fixed bench) from which the desk, coffee table and lounge could be stored and pulled out when required. The bed would be suspended above and could more from side to side depending on what was happening. The kitchen would also be contained in this bench.

The final design was very simple.

Minima Review

Final presentations for Minima were very interesting. It was great to see how other people represented Minima. I was keen to see to what scale people considered Minima living. I took a more comfortable approach and had a space that included a lounge, coffee table, large bench to work from and seperate ammenities. This was probably a rather boring approach and I much preferred solutions that included very little but still provide a space that was attractive and inviting.

I had never made a model before, so again was very keen to see what other people had come up with. Some were pretty flimsy, but other were really interesting and really demonstrated the design.

I spent most of the say watching reviews and thought that some people got far more of a reation from the reviewers than others, in a lot of instances, you had no idea whether the reviewer actually liked the design or not. But generally I learnt alot by going from one group to the next.

I have learnt alot from this second project to take into the third. So let's see how we go here.