New Hexyurt project

[Abby]

Occupy pittsburgh is tossing around the idea of a hexayurt village. I
will update more links after we make a video and have the final
proposal.

Heres a start on what we are up to.

http://www.occupypittsburgh.org/content/hexayurts-we-need-these-winter

If you have any advice on flooring and Is it fire proof or how can we
make it fire proof. Please share or share whatever you would like

[Vinay Gupta (Hexayurt Shelter Project)]

Hi Abby, good to meet you. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUfIe8xcR1M is a short film we made at a winter hexayurt village in Brussels. It was for an art project, and very successful.

http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/other/advice-for-occupy-avoid-winter-war-2881 is a piece I wrote which provides more context on winter operations, and why one might wish *not* Occupy through the winter in cold places. It's based on a lot of years spending a lot of time outdoors,and  my time with freight train riders and a grim sense of the importance of comfort to human psychology.

It appears to be the Ur-text from which the latest Adbusters Tactical Briefing was prepared, for what that is worth:

http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/adbusters-tactical-briefing-18.html

so it's good to know people are listening.

Umoja Village is also instructive: a squatted village in Florida that was burned to the ground the night before the first hexayurts were to go up. That was, hm, 2008 or so. Suspicious at the time.

So that's my first advice: Don't occupy through the winter, it's going to suck.

If you are going to do it, there's two basic approaches. 

1> Do the legwork, spend the money.

A> Get Thermax HD (which is a heavier grade of the Tuff R hexayurt boards). It's fire rated because the aluminium surface is about as thick as a coke can, so flame just can't penetrate.

B> Get softiles for the flooring.

We're talking about $1000 per H12 hexayurt in those materials. They'll last forever, though!

2> Hack it.

A> Smoke detector in every yurt.

B> Massively strict no-candles, no-cookstoves, no-fire policy that you take really, really seriously. It's not just the hexayurt burning, it's the stuff inside the hexayurt - cushions, blankets, couches. Cheap, warm stuff tends to be flammable as hell.

C> Fire extinguishers. They're cheap and they really work. One per hexayurt, standard issue.

D> No smoking inside. Ever. On pain of being kicked out of the camp. Enforced, not joked about.

E> Manage the heating without flame. How, I don't know.

F> Treat the boards. There are fireproof paints. You could coat the boards with wallpaper paste and thick, thick baking foil. You could look at a fabric coating (for warmth) and load it with borax. You could ask some engineers who do fire management work in real buildings what to do, and you could obey them to the letter.*

* yes, I mean ask a professional. I'm trained as an engineer: a software engineer. I've got zero qualifications to tell you about how to manage fire risk, and if you don't ask people who are properly trained to manage these risks in buildings and communities, you're running the risk of one of us screwing up so badly somebody gets killed. Use the web, find some suitable engineering firm, anybody who deals with big buildings, and ask them to help in support of Occupy. Somebody will say yes.

Umoja Village is instructive. I'm not saying it was arson, but I'm saying that the timing was very, very suspicious. You have to take that away as a way of getting rid of your camp. This is harsh, but Occupy is beginning to scare people, and the US has a long history of foul violence towards movements of political change. My primary concern is with saving lives, and I don't want to see a bunch of people getting hurt because of some off-duty cop with a gallon of kerosene and a gutfull of whiskey.

Just be careful out there, ok?

On flooring: palettes, then a layer of the foam boards like the walls, then a layer of 3mm hardboard (the cheap brown stuff) to spread the load of people walking on it, otherwise they'll punch right through the insulation, then a layer of carpet.

Best guess, no guarantees, but it's the sort of thing that works.

Good luck!

Vinay
PS: not four inch tape, six inch tape. Your website says 4", and it makes construction much, much harder.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group.
To post to this group, send email to hexa...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to hexayurt+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en.

--
Vinay Gupta
Free Science and Engineering in the Global Public Interest

http://bit.ly/gupta_arc - the Gupta State Failure Management Archive
http://bit.ly/gupta_ark - or see it directly on Archive.org

http://hexayurt.com - free/open next generation human sheltering
http://hexayurt.com/plan - the whole systems, big picture vision

"In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer" - Albert Camus

Twitter/Skype/Gizmo/Gtalk/AIM: hexayurt
UK Cell : +44 (0) 7500 895568 / USA VOIP (+1) 775-743-1851

[Abby Elizabeth]

Vinay,

Hey I intend on being as safe as possible and I do appreciate your concerns.

As a general ball park what would the 12' + 8' hexayurt costs and the 8'+8'

The one that has 18 and the other that has 26 4 x 8 prices and of course the 166 sq foot 18 4x8's. 

I will write more later. Its just a pressing question above. Ill try to write back more today.

Thanks

Abby

[Vinay Gupta (Hexayurt Shelter Project)]

Well, at $20 a board which was the price I saw mentioned in your area, that'll be 

18 * $20 + tape = $360 + mebbe $120 of tape, call it $500.

More when you add the floor.

Those are mighty large hexayurts, though. I think a lot of smaller units is probably the way to go, it's much easier to manage privacy and comfort with a lot of small spaces.

My $0.02,

V>

[ken winston caine]

Vinay, did you see HD boards for sale in the U.S. for $20 each? What
thickness? And where?

I can't even find the HD boards in my area. And the Corning 2" boards
with NO foil covering are $28 each at my Home Depot. That's $504 alone
for 18 boards.

Would really like to find the HD and at a price that would let me
build an 18-board hexayurt for under $1,000.

-- ken

On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Vinay Gupta (Hexayurt Shelter

[Vinay Gupta (Hexayurt Shelter Project)]

No, I haven't seen HD for $20 a sheet, sorry.

You have to call Dow about sourcing it. It's a bulk order item, generally speaking. Minimum order used to be about 30 sheets.

V>