The Bucky-Gandhi Design Institution

Nice Hexayurt picture from Tommy Legba

Via http://tommylegba.livejournal.com/.

Cities Go Green on the Hexayurt

http://www.citiesgogreen.com/component/content/article/45-the-tech-fix/183-hexayurt

Really an excellent piece, captures more of the big picture than anything else done so far. Thank you!

Really nice Hexayurt video

*grin*

Interview with the lads from Progressive Building Solutions at Burning Man

Really quite a nice article.

http://progressivebuildingsolutions.com is the main site for commercial hexayurt activity right now, of course.

Wired on the Hexayurt

Originally designed as refugee housing, a Hexayurt can be built for $200 from fire-safe insulation boards and industrial tape. The Hexayurt Project follows a free and open source model; plans can be downloaded at the project’s website.

I visited two of these innovative shelters last year at Burning Man. One belonged to Lindsey Darby, a 21-year-old college student and co-designer on the Hexayurt Project. The other belonged to Kevin Price, a 47-year-old computer technician from Mesa, Arizona, who said he discovered Hexayurts two weeks before Burning Man. “I was thinking of all the ways the tent would be awful. I went right to it: no prototype.” He bought all the parts, cut them in his driveway and assembled them on the playa.

Inside, both Darby’s and Price’s Hexayurts were spacious, quiet and cooler than expected in the hot afternoon sun. According to Darby, her fold-up Hexayurt took only 30 minutes to assemble on the playa, and its impressive R-value allowed her to sleep later than her neighbors.

“I’ve always stayed in a Hexayurt on the playa, never in a tent, so I’ve always been able to stay in bed until 10 or 11 [a.m.],” she said. “But I did notice that I was always the last one up!”

Vinay Gupta, the Hexayurt’s inventor, said: “It’s like having an entire extra day at Burning Man. You can go to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning, get up at noon, and you’re still human at the end of the week.”

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2008/08/burningman_tents

Very nice, very nice indeed. I’m very happy with this one

new water filtration technique based on the structure of water?

In 2003, Gerald Pollack and his colleagues at the University of Washington, Seattle, discovered a process known as the “particle-exclusion phenomenon”.

They found that particles dissolved in water naturally move away from a hydrophilic, or water-loving, surface, leaving pure water behind.

What was really surprising was quite how far the particles would move – up to several tenths of a millimetre. This is much further than predicted by conventional theories.

Pollack believes the phenomenon is caused by water molecules forming into a liquid-crystal-like array that sits on the hydrophilic surface. “This liquid crystalline zone excludes particles in much the same manner as ice excludes particles,” he told New Scientist.

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14324-dirtrepelling-tube-promises-cheap-pure-water.html

Applications? Depending on how cheap/easy this is, it looks like it could turn into no-clog particulate filtering. There’s also an open question about how small and how reliable - could a multi-pass system based on this technology filter out even viruses, or does it require a fairly large particle to filter?

Potentially very exciting.

The Corporate Biomass Stove

Coming of the Corporate Biomass Stoves - Mass Manufacturing to Save the Day?

For the last year or three there has been a huge amount of activity in what I call “corporate stoving” - it is not as if corporations of one kind or another have not always had wares for sale (certainly in the developed world!), but they have not always been this active in developing countries - the market certainly is huge, but the margins are uncertain and the customers non-traditional. I could speculate on their ulterior motives, but suffice to say they are welcome players - previously, improved fuel efficient stove programs which have resulted in disseminations of some few tens of thousands of stoves are considered very succcessful, a hundred thousand stoves is monumental, and only the Chinese have been capable of deploying millions of stoves.

http://improvedstoves.blogspot.com/2008/08/coming-of-corporate-biomass-stoves-mass.html

Deep thinking on infrastructure makes normal life seem weird.

Working on infrastructure. Seriously putting some dents in my head, looking at the systems around me right now keeping me cosy, wondering how on earth it all works.

Fundamental realization - most infrastructure was designed by and for cold countries. With tons of consistent solar energy you can do a whole new class of things and that is really worthwhile.

But I need a lab and some time.

Noooo - it burns, it burns

from http://twitpic.com/54k4 (twitter from Golden Phoenix)

Smari said, on sight, “Hahahahaha New Headquarters?”

Rough video from my talk in Iceland

Much better video to follow - this is what I shot with my Xacti E1 from a tripod in the back of the room!

Discussion here and HQ video and talk slides here.