en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology

www.arcology.com/

www.arcosanti.org/theory/arcology/intro.html

www.arcologynetwork.org/

www.geocities.com/arcology_IT/

www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-arcology.htm

www.arcology.com/life.html

reality.sculptors.com/cgi-bin/wiki?WholeFuture/Arcologies

www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O1-Arcology.html

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/arcology

photonswarm.com/futurology/?article=5

hairball.bumba.net/~rwa2/school/enpm643/Arcology.html

www.kheper.net/topics/arcology/arcology.htm

www.orbitalvector.com/Megastructures/Arcologies/Arcologies.htm

www.123exp-science.com/t/01554053187/

Fri 11 Jul, 2008 22:51
Post subject: Design considerations for Next Generation MegaStructures Post One of the hobbies I have had since childhood has been designing Arcologies. I did this with legos and in drawings long before I ever knew about Paolo Santeri,
Or had heard the word "Arcology". My first premise was always simply creating a realistic futuristic city as might be seen as a mars colony, or, as might be used
to solve Earth political problems such as the Palestinian Issue. I must thus concede the word which exists in the language and thank others for their contributions,
but my own exploration has been considerably different and in my view, far more pragmatic than others.

Building an Arcology is no small undertaking. New York is filled with badly planned and too densely packed apartment buildings. The World is full of mediocre and bad architecture. Its easy to build an Arcology and much harder to build a good one. Its Easy to build a dystopian Arcology and Much harder to build a Utopian one.

Thus, I think that it is long over due for somebody to speak out about the primary design considerations which should be thought of when building an Arcology.

1. Arcologies should use as much as possible materials which are collected from on site.
2. Arcologies should be built around open pit rock quarry mines, or strip mines.
3. Arcologies should be composed primarily of foam crete, or, concrete with lots of air bubbles blown into it.
4. Arcologies should be composed secondarily of a metal infrastructure.
5. Floors on Arcologies should be constructed using the same techniques as modern suspension bridges, and with the least amount of materials possible.
6. Arcology walls should be two or three meters thick at the base.
7. Arcologies Should be built no less than 100 stories tall and no more than 200 stories tall.
8. Arcologies should, like ice bergs, have considerable volume beneath the surface in the form of mines, basments, and deep foundations.
9. Arcologies Should invariably take advantage of geothermal power.
10. In essence, A good Arcology is firstly a large scale strip mine, secondly a large scale geothermal power plant, thirdly a large scale manufacturing center,
fourthly a large scale permaculture garden, and only lastly a large scale city inside of a single building.
11. Because Circles have more structural strength and durability, Arcologies should be based on circular geometry and radial symetry.
12. Inhabitants of an Arcology should have porch gardens of sufficient size to grow all of the food that they need.
13. Inhabitants of Arcologies should have thus windows to the outside. No arcology should be built where inhabitants do not have access to outdoor sunlight or air, unless that arcology is built on mars, venus, or some other such planet other than earth.
(Unless Earth becomes toxic.)
14. These criteria combined mutually together infer a large central tower with radial habitation wings. Radial symetry and size considerations thus would seem
to combine with space requirements to create a situation where the real size of a real and pragmatic Arcology can be in essence refered to by the number of stories tall that it is, and the number of habitat wings which fit around the central tower.
15. Each of these habitat wings by neccessity should be as thick at least as the current large house. Between 5 and ten meters at minimum.
16. Each wing in most ideal Arcologies will actually have an interior hallway adding 5 more meters to the thickness via the hall and 10 more meters due to doubling the housing. Thus the width of one wing is presumed to be between 25 and 35 Meters. Adding 4 meters on each side for the garden porch renders
a total of 31-41 Meters.
17. The next criteria for size is the length of a habitat wing. While this could be virtually any multiple of the apartment size, smaller numbers will not take advantage of the other design criteria well enough, and larger numbers will sprawl the arcology out too far. Assuming that the whole point is to be able to walk
only as much as a single mile from one end of the arcology to the other, (approximately, and perhaps as much as 2 miles.) The length of a habitat wing can be inferred to be optimal around 300 or 400 meters, depending on the size of the central tower.
18. Elevator arrays should be located next to emergency stairs at both ends of each habitat wing.
19. An arcology should by definition be also a water park, with its own closed circuit water system, with its own sewage treatment, and its own full air and water biocycle. No water should ever leave the arcology via tunnels or tubes for any reason. Sewage should be directly recycled on site and used as fertilizer.
20. A good Arcology as a water theme park should offer many different swimming pools, water slides, hottubs, and other water intensive environments at or below the ground floor. The Ground floor (or, deepest sub basement) of a good Arcology is a geothermally heated water park.
21. The central tower of a good Arcology should house in the basements the geothermal power plant, the water works systems, the sewage treatments systems, and any other major energy equipment.
22. The Central tower should house a large coliseum.
23. The central tower should house above the coliseum several layers of community gardens, of sufficient size and complexity via stacking to support the entire population with food. (Redundant to the porch gardens which are ancillatory to personal apartments. A stable civilization has at least two layers of redundancy for food supply in case there is some sort of problem. The isolation of individual gardens will protect the system from larger scale systemic failures, whereas the community gardens will supply more food at less human labor cost, but be more susceptible to large scale system failures.)
24. Although different applications may differ, it is probably advisable to put towers at the ends of the habitat wings, for the purpose of housing assorted human activities such as schools, offices, industry, manufacturing, smaller scale social gathering spaces, community kitchens (non corporate "Restauraunts.)
Baby sitting centers, activity centers, recreational facilities, and so forth.
25. The outer towers can be infered to be slightly larger than the width of the habitat wings themselves, perhaps 50 or 70 meters in diameter.
_________________
Image

You should combine all the information in these links into the RBEF wiki.

FoamCRETE!!

So lets be specific and simple.

1. Foam crete is concrete with bubbles blown in it.
2. the trick being both to mix something a bit different in termf of frothy bubble mix cement,
3. And then to throw it through a wind fan and a bubble blower foam whirler.
(air injector.)
4. The resulting substance when done well is as hard as concrete blocks but up to one tenth the weight
per volume, resulting in essentially a cinder block as tall as a human that the human can easily pick up
and carry off.
5. Playing with foamcrete can thus work in two very interesting ways. The first and somewhat more creative way is to create blocks of it at just the size where any larger is hard to manage, or about a half
meter tall and wide and two meters long.
B. Building balloons or structures onto which to pour the foam, thereby creating a super solid and hard and strong structure or dome.
c. Or, picture a batch of 100 foot long metal poles being used to pitch a 500 foot tall geodesic dome.
Then toss a nice tarp over it. Then build a soft infrastructure and put on a new tarp 2 meters taller,
and then fill between the tarp spaces with foamcrete, creating a 500 foot tall dome with a 2 meter thick foamcrete wall and cieling.

6. The benefits of foamcrete are that since the bubbles add strength via geometric architecture,
foamcrete doesn't crack, its subsetting instead just breaks some but not all of its bubbles. It stays hard and strong, but even has internal flex. Rather than simply break all the way through it will impact
compress. Its sound and strong thus over geological time rather than rotting slowly like the concrete they usually pour.

7. Since it doesn't rot or break , its going to be here for virtually forever.
8. You don't have to cut down trees and thus are not limited in size or scope by the ecosystem.
9. So you can create these things very cheaply, and at enormous sizes.
10. So why not just use foamcrete and invest in the next level of civilization? Including, by gawds,
the roads, which should be 3 meter thick solid pour foamcrete.
(Buried flush with .5 meters below the curb.)
11. Thus no more road work for 4000 years, once we put the next level on.
12. And then for fifty states, give each one a new city. Start someplace as remote as the state
gets. In a few states, just cross over the boarder going west and put a new border town in the state just over the border from its parent. Each of these 50 sites then becomes a new city. Plumbed with truly modern geothermal power and water, and a closed circuit water system, home to 1 million persons
and in each case each of those persons entire ecological footprint; all the farms and gardens and every thing that the population needs created on site.
13. Such buildings are safe to build in terms of stories up to about 200 meters tall, which at 4 meters per story renders 50 stories.
14. Care should be given in design to make everything spacious, because spacious is equal to cozy and
because it after all will be lasting for geologic time and is thus a gift we build to give not only to ourselves but to our descendents as far away from us as potentially hundreds of generations.
15. a fourteen meter long and wide apartment is both large enough and small enough; the true ideal.
16. Thus a 4 meter tall and 14 meter square is the shape of an apartment.
17. Then go ten long and 50 tall for a wing; which by having two apartments on either side of an interior hallway gives us 20 apartments apartments, 1000 apartments per wing.
now make this building an eight or ten or twelve or twenty or 36 wing building with a center which is
a sports area in the middle and a swimming pool in the basement, with a lookout platform for a top.

Then on the ends of the wings, you can have towers with assorted community rooms for industry, classes, offices, gymns, and even more swimming pools in the basement.

So The described structure is essentially a radial building which though it is as tall as a skysrcaper is actually longer and flatter and squatter than it is tall. A self similar new "downtown" of some major metropolis, built as a single large structure over a 3 year time rather than over 150 years of time.

Then, that housing structure has to be surrounded by enough farm space to feed the population,
Or its own personal yard of gardens and parks and flatter public spaces. The farming acreage decompresses that large number of people stacked tall out into a much larger yard, say 5 or 10 times the footprint of the building. The new buildings are those biodomes, inside of which we are now growing year round at ideal conditions, with totally controlled weather.

So, I'm visualizing a modern foamcrete civilization, and us building it. I have described details which
are aproximations to be shaped by anybody elses imagination, and kept the list short but just long enough to see the scale we are working in. The new wall is ideal at two meters wide and will tend to be that at the base but say only a meter wide at the apex 100 or 200 meters tall. If 100 meter tall buildings seem scary to you, design or think in terms of only 5 or 10 stories (4 metersx5 =20 meters, x10=40 meters.)

Now imagine it and draw it, and share it and then go in circles again after learning more and thinking about it.

Eventually that as an art process based in google sketchup is itself a solution to the problem of how to make the site go viral.
_________________
Image
_________________

JoshStrobl wrote:
You should combine all the information in these links into the RBEF wiki.

Hmmm.

Yes. See, its always interesting to think about how pan opens. which filing cabinets.

RBEF i am pushing specific growth which is tailored to them.

they have their own scope. When i ask them what is on their scope its funny
how nobody knows what i am talking about or how the scope is very similar and yet in some ways drastically changes over here.

This is a design center with design considerations in mind.

Thats opened up the back of my mind and those files ...
i have stored..

Its funny ...you know.. its all about the relationship...
what people put forth or bring out and how that takes me to the information
i can figure or hope they are ready for.

I can pile it on very quickly and too much past the scope and eyes start
to glaze over.

I'm pushing the force of attention limitation for everyone.

So instead of complaining that they are humans or that you guys are I'm going to use you as parallel processors and give the information in each place which i think that the people in each place are ready for. NOW.

Of course all of this goes into the wiki eventually. But not now.

BTW... speaking of which, how does one organize a wiki for all with everybodies wikis? lol

Quote:
:-o wow. All I can say is, wow. Next question (please maybe we should write a book called 'Geothermal for Dummies'.) Question; why do I feel as if I have heard of geothermal all my life and yet at the same instant, know nothing about it?

------------

:clap: :dance:

-------------

Quote:
:oops: oh. is it like, geothermal blankets? No. that'd be thermal blankets.

whichever, this is something important. Next question: has anyone ever actually done this? In any location?



%%- @};- **==

Well there it is. Geothermal power is one form of power available to us. It has its pros and cons.
The easy to point at cons is that the best gains come with enormous sized wells; ie; a good geothermal
power station is a mega-scale engineering project; like building a dam, or a nuclear power station,
or putting in an oil well, but with a bore hole 10 times larger in diameter; something large enough to build a spiral staircase down.

Heres what you get for that project; a well that makes about a tenth of the power as the larger nuclear power stations do; over geological time.

Geothermal power is esoteric power in that 100 years ago nobody knew that it existed or realized what it could do for us. By contrast other civilizations may have had solar paneling hundreds or thousands of years ago and solar heating has been used in architecture for 600 years in the west.

You don't know about it because only geeky scientists know about it of the people who would know about it. Which is why ME in particular is the guy people want to listen to; I'm a geeky geeks geek.
:techie-studyinggray: :techie-studyingbrown: :techie-reference: :techie-studyinggray: :techie-studyingbrown: :techie-reference: :techie-studyingbrown: :techie-reference: :text-blondmoment:



Anyways, here are the basics to consider in answer to your questions an anticipated.

1. Geothermal power has been done quite well now in a variety of places, in fact geothermal power even now accounts for a small percentage of Americas power supply. There are several hundred geothermal power stations world wide, most of them at fairly small relative scales. A much more common use of the lower energy available up higher is geothermal heating for the home or etc.
Direct geothermal heat to the surface is useful at heats below whats good for power generation via water thermal transfer. A good geothermal well drops into a metal chamber whose surface is cooking at
200 or 300 degrees, which turns the water to steam pretty quick especially if you then run a coil tube
system at that level. There are a large variety of different kinds of geothermal power stations and as with all such systems some are better than others. I am only a proponent of closed system double loop
geothermal power stations, which makes me a hardass, but oh well.
lol

2. Geothermal power is ANYWHERE. Beneath your feet some distance is lava heat at 500 degrees and hotter.

3. The actual availability of it is that it is pretty rare to find a place where that heat is less than about 3 miles under the surface. However; There is a bellcurve here which brings that heat in some few places directly to the surface in such places as hawaii or yellowstone national park.
And, so in truth the accessibility of it is that it is MORE ACCESSIBLE THAN OIL. The reason why is that
the surveyed heat to be found available in those rare upswellings where it gets to within 200 meters of the surface is 2000 times more energy than the USA currently uses.

In other words, in theory, if we only tapped heat as low as 200 meters there is 2000 times more
heat than we need.

Now the beautiful thing about all of that is that if you just go over the top of that to 300 or 500 meters, You can build these arcology sized systems with enormous yields, the same as a nuclear power
station if you build like 10 or 100 of them in an array.

4. The cost to convert over to a geothermal centered system, IE to 10 years from now get 80 percent of our energy from geothermal is probably considerably lower than the cost of the bailout or the Iraq war, maybe 100 billion. For a trillion we could add the arcologies themselves and house a third or a fith
of the population in America in new foam-crete super cities. (built out of the stone refuse of what the excavation of the wells creates, a three dimensional modern supercastle, like a super sized theme park
of giant apartment complexes.

5. So see the process; You drill down 500 meters and then widen that hole till its 100 meters wide. Then you cap that and put in a coil system. Then you cap that and surgically remove the first cap.
Then you put in the geothermal station on top of that. Then what you have is stretching as a giant inside out in rock sky scraper downward, about 400 meters.
So then you have a bunch of rock you now pulverize, and then you toss the pulverized rock at a fixed rate into a bubble bath to create foam crete, which you now use to build the top side of a short but very squat sky scraper.

6. So in the end, you not only build a power station that will last over geothermal time, you simultaneously create a micro city, but in three dimensional space around the site.

7. You also have the added bonus in this city of having an enormous cycling water system pre installed,
all the hot water and hot steam you could ask for right in its own plumbing.

8. Since the best thing to do is build a large reservoir for the geothermal power station, the smart thing to do is to cover 2/3s of your hole left to fill in water, and create a super deep swimming pool.
depending on how creative and playful one is with their designs, you can put in a water recreation theme park. And larger but shallower reservoirs away from the center.

9. So, you want to know how to boom the economy? Heres a 1 trillion government project
that will simultaneously solve a whole lot of very different problems, be it affordable housing,
unemployment, energy, or etc.

10. Also, incidentally, making nuclear power look pretty stupid, since nobody wants to live right on top or inside of a nuclear power plant, but a geothermal power station can be turned into a water theme park and a thousand biodomes of green farms no matter what the external climate.
_________________

Mon 25 Aug, 2008 23:55
Post subject: Hurricane and Flood proof cities Post Mitey mouse, the honorable representative from Florida, has brought some important problems to the attention of prometheus, the representative hailing from the sagitarius galaxy.


It is a tragedy when so many people loose their homes and everything they own, especially when such tragedies were entirely predictable and entirely preventable.

This thread exists to explore the solutions to such problems so that hopefully this next round of rebuilding won't be yet another iteration of the same old tragedy.

1. Homes and houses should not be made of wood. Period. The reason for this is simple. Wood decays, it breaks easily, and it is bad for the ecology to build with it because trees have to die.
The simple facts are that Wood is a primitive building material and we now have much more modern
building materials. Specifically, Concrete, steel, and foamcrete. Foamcrete is concrete with bubbles blown into it. This makes it light weight, better as insulation, and less likely to chip, crack, or decay.

2. Location Location Location. It will always end in tragedy sooner or later to build anything within 20 feet of sea level unless you are hundreds of miles inland. If you are going to build in zones likely to flood, then you should build a structure which can withstand the flood, or, don't build.

3. For those who just can't help themselves from building in flood likely zones, there are two main answers to this.
A. Build a home or whatever which seals completely and which is made of foam crete and which has a strong steel fence around it to keep large debris from impacting. Have a months worth of food and water stored away inside so that you can wait out the flood. This can be expensive and
the result is also isolating. You can't leave while the flood waters have more or less engulfed such a structure.
B. Build a house or whatever which floats on stilts. This is less expensive than the first option,
and also gives the occupants the ability to leave or come and go while the flood is happening.



www.fiberfoamconcrete.com/

www.cement.org/HOMES/ch_bs_floorroof.asp

www.concretenetwork.com/concrete-homes/

flyingmoose.org/truthfic/edison.htm

www.coolhouseplans.com/concrete_ ... index.html

www.scrapbookscrapbook.com/DAC-A ... van-1.html

images.google.com/images?hl=en&c ... a=N&tab=wi


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_proof_building

Hurricane proof building
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)

Tornadoes, cyclones, and other strong winds damage or destroy many buildings. However, with proper design and construction, the damage to buildings by these forces can be greatly reduced or eliminated. Over time, a variety of methods have been studied and tested (both formally and incidentally by actual storms) that can help a building survive strong winds and storm surge. Local building departments may mandate their use in high velocity hurricane zones, or areas where buildings are likely to have to withstand a hurricane in their lifetime.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Storm surge considerations
* 2 Wind loading considerations
o 2.1 The foundation
+ 2.1.1 Mobile Home tie down to the foundation
o 2.2 Earth Sheltering
o 2.3 Dome homes
* 3 Building components
o 3.1 Garages, windows, doors, and other openings
+ 3.1.1 Doors
+ 3.1.2 Windows
* 4 Building materials
o 4.1 Wood
o 4.2 Concrete
* 5 Examples of Cyclonic Construction Methods
* 6 See also
* 7 External links

[edit] Storm surge considerations

A common problem for buildings during hurricanes is storm surge. Flooding occurs frequently in coastal areas and waves contain a tremendous amount of energy which can literally batter a building to pieces. Beach front buildings should be able to withstand the ocean rising 20 or more feet with large waves on top of that. They should preferably be built on high ground where possible in order to avoid waves knocking the building down.

If waves can reach the building site, the building should be elevated on steel, concrete, or wooden pilings and/or anchored to solid rock. Whether it is intended or not, the walls on the first floor are often built with sheetrock which can completely deteriorate when wet and/or exposed to lateral forces, leaving structural members in place, and allowing water (or high winds) to pass through. This "gutting" occurs frequently in storm surge areas. If done by design, "sacrificing" the walls of the first floor is not an ideal solution, although it can save the rest of the building from destruction. Of course, building contents left on that level will be lost and considerable damage to the building could still result in costly repairs - see mold, rot, and termite problems below under building materials.

[edit] Wind loading considerations

[edit] The foundation
A Monolithic dome after Hurricane Dennis in 2005.
A Monolithic dome after Hurricane Dennis in 2005.

Wind acting on the roof surfaces of a building can cause negative pressures that tend to create a lifting force. This is one of the most common ways a building can be destroyed during a storm. Gravity alone may not be sufficient to prevent the roof from lifting, or "peeling" off the rest of the building. Once this occurs, the building is weakened considerably and the rest of the building will likely fail as well. To minimize this, the upper structure should be securely anchored through the walls to the foundation.

Several methods can be used to securely anchor the roof. Traditionally, roof trusses were simply "toenailed" into the top of the walls. These nails provide little to no actual structural advantage; they're mainly used to hold the trusses in place while the rest of the roof is being built. Gravity and friction then ensure the roof stays put. Various products have been developed that can actually anchor the roof to the walls, which should then be anchored to a solid foundation. Metal straps which nail into the wall and wrap over the trusses are one method. Other methods, including temporary straps made of a special low elongation material, have successfully been used and have an advantage in that a building built prior to 1993 which may not be constructed to withstand wind loading can be quickly and temporarily strapped to the foundation to ensure stuctural stability is maintained well in advance of the storm. Hurricane Harness strapping can easily be applied and removed after the storm to ensure the highest level of protection in extreme high wind storms.


[edit] Mobile Home tie down to the foundation

In the bulk of instances when interlocking metal pan roof systems installed on mobile homes are exposed to extreme high winds, such as hurricanes and the outer band winds of a tornado, un-repairable damage occurs to the overall building structure once the fasteners attaching the metal roof panels to the stuctural frame begin to tear or rip through the aluminum metal pan base, under the pressure differentials (lift) created by airfoil (vacuum) as a consequence of the high velocity winds passing over the surface plane of the roof. This event becomes compounded by the high velocity of wind entering the carport or other building add-on causing a mode of (wind capture), a formative release of energy forces the underside of the roof panels to lift resulting in complete devastation to the roof system, in addition to the roof line/siding section, where the developements may become less than a desirable situation to the overall building structure and to the homeowner. To mitigate this negative force of pressure differencial, pre-installed aluminum tabular channels can permanently be fastened perpendicular across the top of the interlocking ribs of the metal roof system without disturbing the flow of rain water at the eave, mid-span, and ridge locations of the building. Variable lengths of an extremely strong, low elongation, Hurricane Harness strap are cut to length, placed over the channels and fastened into ratchets which are attached to a variety of anchoring methods on opposite sides of the building. This engineered design provides an uninterrupted continuous load path from one anchor to the other. The ratchets apply a uniform counteractice load throughout the channel systems and throughout the entire roof assembly. The structure literally becomes sandwiched within the strapping and the anchors with addition to providing a positive active dead load to the outer wall systems and column supports, increasing the resistance to the lateral wind force being applied to the main structure during a storm event. In addition, this secondary measure of protection will visually alleviate any unforeseen building deficiencies within the structural confines of the building, or rusted or inadaqit earth support ties to the lower frame chasis of the structure.

[edit] Earth Sheltering

Earth Sheltered Construction is generally more resistant to strong winds and tornadoes than standard construction. It is for this reason that cellars, and other Earth Sheltered components of other buildings, can provide safe refuge during tornadoes.

[edit] Dome homes

The physical geometry of a building affects its aerodynamic properties and how well it can withstand a storm. Geodesic dome roofs or buildings made from wood, steel, or concrete have low drag coefficients and can withstand higher wind forces than a square building of the same area.

[edit] Building components

[edit] Garages, windows, doors, and other openings

These are generally the weak points susceptible to breakdown by wind pressure and blowing debris. Once failure occurs, wind pressure builds up inside the building and in seconds, may lift the roof off a building. Hurricane shutters can also provide effective protection.

[edit] Doors

Exterior doors should open outward in hurricane prone areas. An inward opening door can be blown into the house by wind causing potential structural failure. Various companies offer new doors that comply with the local building codes. Some companies offer retro-fit devices that can be professionally installed. These kits are often just as expensive as a new door. A good source for products include the Miami-Dade building code website[1]. It shows how the products are to be installed to withstand the most punishing of winds. Some of the companies are local and many products were in use prior to Hurricane Andrew.

[edit] Windows

It is usually a requirement to install 150 mile per hour tested windows in hurricane prone areas. These windows should have plastic panes, shatter-proof glass or glass with protective membranes (Impact Glass). The panes have to be more firmly attached than normal window panes (possibly even using screws or bolts through the edges of larger panes). See hurricane shutters.

Windows protected by steel or heavy aluminum shutters may be best in some hurricane prone areas.

[edit] Building materials

The choice of building materials can affect the ability of a building to withstand high winds. Although it is not always possible to use different materials, if the area is extremely susceptible to high winds, it is good practice to use the most resistant materials available.

[edit] Wood

Wood is the most common building material as it is readily available, relatively inexpensive, and has a degree of flexibility which can be beneficial in certain high stress situations. However, termite and dry rot are frequent problems in timber buildings located in areas susceptible to hurricanes, particularly in warm, humid climates. Weakened buildings cannot withstand wind loads as well as intact buildings can. To combat this, certain building codes require the use of pressure-treated wood for all structural elements of the building, which is designed to prevent rot and deterioration.

Also, wood and paper backed sheetrock provide food for black mold which can grow if the inside of the building gets wet during a storm. The mold can then be costly to remove and must be considered as a factor when deciding which building materials to use.

A building constructed with wood can effectively be built to withstand fairly high wind loads. However, flying debris - furniture, trees, parts of other buildings which are common in such a storm - can still damage or destroy a well-designed wood building even if the wind isn't sufficient to do so itself.

[edit] Concrete

Reinforced concrete is a strong, dense material that, if used in a building that is designed properly, can withstand the destructive power of very high winds, pounding waves, and even high-speed debris. Concrete used in home construction must be reinforced with steel (commonly known as "rebar"). While the rebar can rust in wet or humid environments, there are various effective means to retard or prevent rebar corrosion due to moisture.

[edit] Examples of Cyclonic Construction Methods

Wed 03 Sep, 2008 15:02
Post subject: SmallArcologies Post 8)

viewtopic.php?f=89&t=1001&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I more or less just posted a flood/thread here which I assume will be rather useful for references all over the board later.

Its three pages deep, so I thought i'd list my prequel and then continue on.

:mrgreen:

What to say in summary? Well, theres lots t osay about Arcologies and how pleasant they can be when you mix enough enough permaculture and water. The trick with them is mixing in enough permaculture and water. Plus before that you have to really think about giving people lots of space not cramping them in the first place. Expansive and open. One thing I notice is that a very large porch is an important integral part of any apartment which is above the third story of a building.

This design next is about a dozen stories of bunk rooms and classrooms, IE its a school. What you get very quickly from looking at some angles is that theres this enormous porch which is repeated at all of those stories, So you can step out of the rooms and onto these open air platforms where theres even more space than inside.

The central tower surrounds a swimming pool, and thats stories like shelved space also, so that all 12 stories momre or less face inwards into the swimming area.

The central building then has a front and a back, then theres two wings which have three main components; the inside buildings, the porches, and the towers.

I picture about two dozen such buildings interspersed with the previously mentioned and featured in the other threads buildings. IE this building is really well designed to house a medium sized population
of a few hundred persons.
With 22 apartments per side per level, and 12 levels, thats rounding downward 400 persons. Assuming some of those rooms are community rooms, rounding down to about 340 seems fair.
------------------

Edit | Quote
#2
Wed 03 Sep, 2008 15:24
Post subject: Re: SmallArcologies Post So now we have a sort of working lexicon of images with which to begin creating a new civil environment.

These new buildings replace the old standard house, and now theres more room for more interesting things other than just housing.

As creative, high energy recreational attractions drive populations into more compact spaces via voluntary attraction to pleasant environments, what you can now in theory begin to visualize is a new
city taking shape which has geothermal power and heating, but which to boot also has human scaled aquacultures because we are now using water in a closed circuit and have to keep a good supply stored
constantly and very locally to everything.

The Tower and the Pool, which was a set of objects featured in an earlier model becomes a sort of mantra for the two sides of the equation; pleasant and merciful happy recreational space, and high density living.

The third element of course is the actual gardening itself, and the biodomes in which it happens.
When you start to think about connecting all three elements, then you start coming up with very non traditional structures.

These models of course look barren but the idea is to green them up completely; to bury them in some senses in yet another layer of complexity which is plants on the outside of the pools.

You are posting this in the wrong place.

I appreciate your input but respect is a two way street

Please help moderators and admin by posting proper information in its proper forum. This is an intro forum not a research or committee forum.

If you are going to post stuff like this divide it up into proper sections and label them. If you can't do that then don't post it =)

Thanks a million
Rob

Please let me know specifically where the information would fit into your
system.

Or, find an admin whos interested in splicing it off to those places.

I don't know what else to say, other than something had to be done, we weren't talking in a direction to bring out such information and things were spinning wildly.

I want to share this information with you all. It demonstrates that I have been working on the problems and building a city since at least 2008; And a lot of the information is good strong information for us to bear in mind.

heres an idea. Move it to the visualization area, or the drawing room, or whatever such place as you would have where it would be more on topic.

You can leave the intro to me stuff here, take the quirksome intro squabble between mods with you to the new thread, and, it will explain well why
i decided to just pour in information until somebody said something interesting to me.