Inga's House/Functionality and Aesthetics

up to Inga's House and Inga's_House/DesignSpecifications

Ben
If the structure is a square base, then the roof is easiest as a half cylinder vault. If the structure is round, then a dome is easier.

Jeremy
Goals: Our goals are to build a quality house at eFarm using as many local materials as possible.

Specifications:


 * We are going to have an automatic CEB press.
 * We have a limited amount of time to build. (July 25 to August 22)
 * We are going to have a limited number of people here to build (Inga, Marcin, Jeremy, Ben, Guy) and the abilities of each person (mental, emotional, physical, strength, endurance, etc).
 * Marcin will be required to run the tractor and CEB press.
 * Bricks are 12 inches long by 6 inches wide by 4 inches high and weigh about 12 pounds (estimated).
 * A 6 foot high section of wall will take 18 stacks of bricks.
 * A 10 foot long row takes 20 bricks.
 * A 10 foot long by 6 foot high wall section will take 360 bricks, and will weigh about 4320 pounds.
 * The building must withstand the year round climate of Missouri which includes rain and snow, and be comfortable in temperatures from -20 degrees F to 110 degrees F.

Possibilities:


 * Insulation:
 * Foam insulation.
 * Multi-layers of bricks.
 * Roof:
 * Vault
 * For a square building
 * Dome
 * For a round building
 * Using an isosceles triangle roof to simulate the rough area of a dome roof for a 6 meter wide building, the roof would weigh about 490 tons.

Experience from constructing the CEB workshop:


 * Square brick designs are more stable (interlocking corner bricks) and easier to make it vertical.
 * Round sections are more difficult to do and harder to make vertical. One of the curved/angled wall sections was made with substandard frozen mortar material and it collapsed when the mortar thawed.
 * When the bricks get wet they disintegrate.

Axioms I've heard:


 * Most first time owner built homes eventually become the auxiliary area/barn, because they realize only after building it that their first one has too many mistakes and is no good so they have to build another one. So don't build your first house where you want your final house to be, so you don't have to tear down the first one to build the final one.

Franz
The Dome could sit on a flat edge roof formed by wooden construction and creating a smaller, octogonal base for the dome. Its very hard to find a structure like this on the net because the byzantine concept is different. Eventually I found this hint:

http://www.webgaza.net/images/palestine/tour/jer/Dome_of_Youssef.jpg