School of experimental building. DAO owned land where people come together to experiment with building technology, classes and workshops. People stay in experimental structures. Various tiny houses, earth structures, domes, Needs to be done in area of relaxed zoning.
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Love this idea — this is similar to what @charlie is planning to work on at Neighborhood Zero for the next year. He’s currently putting together a proposal for a social clubhouse / sandbox for building based on this memo: Social Clubhouse
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Is this conversation happening or going to happen on Cabin forum? Thanks
yes, he is planning to post a draft proposal here on the forum when he’s ready
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This is true.
Love the idea @OregonScott. Neighborhood Zero just so happens to fit your description of a place with relaxed zoning so I’ve been eager to experiment here.
Had an interesting conversation the other day relating to this topic with a resident here at Neighborhood Zero named Jo. I mentioned how it’s annoying that in order to experiment with housing, you actually have to build the house to test your theories. This reality makes it challenging to make significant progress on proving new kinds of designs before running out of time or money.
Jo works at Nvidia which spends a lot of time creating simulations. His response was that if we could accurately simulate the environmental conditions of a given site, we would be able to rapidly test designs in computer space before committing the large amount of time, money and effort require to test them in the real world.
I’m super excited about this becoming a reality in the future as I’m really interested in testing the quantitative benefits of passive cooling and heating strategies. For example, many know that cross ventilation is a passive way of cooling a home. But what’s the ideal size of the two openings? What the ideal angle between them? What’s difference in height is most optimal? These are the kind of factors that could first be optimized in computer space before transitioning to a real life build.
To bring it back to your original topic, I’ll be releasing a proposal soon for launching a social club here at Neighborhood Zero that will incorporate ways for citizens to add to the built environment.
What kind of experimental projects would you like to see us build here? Also, where are you located? Would love to collaborate with you on a build.
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Hi Charlie. I’m located near Eugene, Oregon. One of the most interesting passive heating and cooling designs I’ve found are earth ships. I have been thinking about building one in Eastern Oregon. Land is fairly cheap and there are a few counties with relaxed building codes. Are there many active experimental builders near neighborhood O? Looking forward to your proposal.
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Hi @OregonScott are you still interested in this?
I am keen to experiment with building different shelter/home/cabin designs.
I was just mentioning over here that we have some raw land where we want to build an eco-village. We are starting with raw land so small, cheap housing is one of the first things we are needing to house the people that we hope will come and stay in and help us build the village.
For our context, the ideal cabin would be something small, just a bed and a desk (kitchen, toilet, shower would a separate shared facilities), DIY something we could build ourselves using timber cut from local trees or other easily sourced materials.
I think my next step should be to list what’s already out there in terms of plans and builds including @charlie ’s awesome common cave, then price them up, and commit to a build.
Anyone else also in the building phase or got design/building skills keen to work on this? I’d be keen to hear from you (vaiian on the discord).
I think the physical cabin building is a big pain point for node caretakers, so I’m keen to see and participate in some coordinated/collaborative efforts around this.
@charlie did the mentioned proposal go ahead? How’s it going?
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Where’s the project location? Website?
We are in the Cook Islands.
We dont have a proper website yet, but we are trying to do the YT thing. im about a year behind in editing, but this gives you a pretty good idea of our context and mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMeO9JdakqY&list=PLKm2BqQ1Bf7Uh1KIIit3_JB-cge9NfPdj&index=2&ab_channel=ProjectSunrise
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