This is good for the appliance repair industry manufacturers have been moving towards specialty diagnostic tools recently that you have to have to diagnose, and can only get if you’re manufacturer authorized to do there warranty work, and make Pennies doing so. When we were authorized with Samsung they bombarded us constantly with “they took er jobs” propaganda when unreality the entire industry is so overwhelmed that I wish people would take some of my jobs. We don’t need manufacturers. They need us. Unless there are proprietary tools then we have to, or just don’t work on there appliances any more. Which isn’t good for the consumer at all.
It’s not all about making blobby organic shapes that are hard to furnish though. You can make square interiors for rooms and in addition have voids strategically placed in the concrete to create chimneys and reduce solar gain, for instance, or your example of incorporating insulation.
This is the kind of discussion I’d like to have though. Sure, one of the reasons dome homes don’t catch on is the awkwardness of using circular spaces. But that’s no reason to think the exterior, wall-interiors and ceilings have to be orthogonal.
You can have a squared off room with an epic organic vaulted ceiling designed to create natural ventilation, for instance. Such things are currently expensive because they are custom construction, but what becomes economical when you don’t have to make concrete forms?
Some things are square (like the interior walls) because it’s just more usable, as you mention. Many other aspects of stick-built structures are square just to facilitate cost-effective construction, usually labor and material saving, not because it’s the best way when considering for the whole lifespan of the building.
Wasp out of Italy is doing the beehive or wasp nest look – Wasp 3D prints eco-homes from local raw earth (Kirsten Dirksen) – should be easier to adapt for hexagonal packing (at least give you some flat walls for beds and bookcases)
another reason for the boring boxes is the reality that you want to build something that others will value and want to buy from you later. sure you could make a sculpture of your house to look like your favorite dog, but who would buy it from you? maybe if its a masterpiece of universal beauty sure, but just for the sake of being different? go check out the values of cars that have customized kit body work done versus stock. if you dont care about resale value and are willing to make custom furnishings then hey go nuts, aim for architectural digest.
modern houses are shaped the way they are because of ease of construction and cost effectiveness…
The freedom to construct free-form structures does little to alter the efficiency. Round rooms have more square footage per wall area than square and spherical shapes have more volume than cylinders or cubes per square foot of exterior. What they gain in theoretical thermal efficiency they lose in other ways. A good example is a bed. A square bed fits better in a square room, and most beds are square.
The majority of the freedom is on artistic expression or layout customization. No matter how perfect the layout might be for an owner, the more custom a house is the less adaptable it is for life changes, new/future owners, and changes of use. One of the biggest advantages of a boring-ass box is its universality and customization options.
Edit - sorry for not answering your question directly. There are ways we could leverage 3D concrete printing - such as ribbed/strengthened below-grade foundations (basements).
I think 3D printing walls could potentially make isolation cheaper by building it directly into the structure, similar to how wasps build their hives.
I am less convinced about funny shapes as in the end you still want your furniture etc. to fit, and I know from painful experience that renovating an old house with walls that aren’t in a 90° angle can be a real PITA.
And while rounded edges would be hard to frame up perfectly and might need manually smoothed, the same is true for this as well.
But since this doesn’t have perpendicular support, I’m assuming it’s either incredibly slow, or the bottom walls will be significantly thicker than the top of the walls.
Personally, I’m going to try to start posting helpful resources starting with the more developed projects and proceeding to the less developed projects. I know that the way the wiki is, that it can be overwhelming for new people, even though it’s really an amazing resource. I hope to make it less intimidating by helping people understand how to navigate the project.
But certainly by no means must all posts be absolutely directly/officially related to OSE.
Thanks for the reply. I really hope this community takes off over time. I dearly love these topics, so I’ll definitely be watching and contributing when I can.
My latest personal obsession is low-power solar and designing energy harvesting circuits using supercapacitors. There are many applications where a battery isn’t strictly necessary.
For instance a stock pond aeration system or running a vent fan could all happen while the sun is shining. Intermittent operations would still achieve the stated purpose and reduce system complexity. Supercapacitors also last longer than batteries and are cheaper.
I’ve been using the latest LLM systems to talk over my circuit designs. It’s like having a stoned expert to talk design issues over with. I prototype the real circuit on a breadboard and give the AI my circuit in the form of a netlist. It can help me tweak circuit behavior and choose appropriate resistance values, as an example.
I mention this because one of the challenges with ecological thinking is developing that “systems thinking”. Having a somewhat intelligent partner to talk about a system (a circuit with 10 interconnected components in this case, but it works for any other system too) really helps one to intuitively understand the overall system function.
I hope for the same from this community. Over time I hope we can build a really cool discussion group where we can help each other understand the complex world we live in. Hearing other perspectives is absolutely invaluable when trying to understand complexity.
What you are doing sounds super interesting! I’m currently saving up to purchase some Arduino hardware and some various sensors for mixing nutrients and monitoring my condo lettuce-factory, lol. The idea of using low voltage solar with super conductors is a great idea.
Any vids you would recommend I watch to start learning?
This one is pretty close to the project I’m working on. I just got my parts in the mail yesterday and won’t have a lot of time to put it into practice till the weekend. I’ll post something here when I get a more finished version. Right now it works, but it runs ragged, so I’m adding a comparator IC and a transistor to provide a clean voltage cutoff.
Always happy to talk electronics! The super capacitors are a great thing to know about because there are a lot of applications that don’t need to run 24/7. My 750ml aquarium will do just fine being only aerated during daylight hours, for instance. A vent for a shed could operate the same way too.
There needs to be a guide on how to use that wiki. Finding the files to download is such a pain in the ass. Unfortunately a majority of the links I clicked on were dead as well.
Do we know if the original OSE community is active? They have been silent on social media for the better part of 6 months.
I live in a literal desert as well as a food desert and would love to build a co-op to for a community garden or other things.
I am a member of our local hacker space, I regrettably do not get out there enough.
Haha, I mean yeah that is a lot of trouble. However, I will do it over the next couple of days. Have some outside projects I want to do, and work starts again tomorrow. So, hang tight and I’ll update you.
I don’t remember what I was looking at but it was one of the 100 percent complete projects.
Btw in reaponse to your other question about current OSE activities, the team has been heads down building the Seed Eco Home 4. Heres an image from their recent FB post.
The Seed Eco Home project is the one I wanted to post about next
I haven’t been on Facebook in almost two years. Completely deactivated FB. So, it makes sense as to why I hadn’t seen any new info if that is where it’s being posted! Thanks for letting me know! Still compiling broken links on the OSE.WIKI
I did see Marcin posting updates to the wiki on July 3rd and July 6th. I still need to go in and see what they are about.
I’d love to get in on the eco home, I’ve been pouring through the designs and I absolutely love it.
Even though I’m on Facebook, I use it rarely, and I wasn’t even in this particular subgroup where he posted it until he shared the update with me directly 😂. So I totally get ya.
Those are great. Since this is on a solarpunk instance, I’d go so far as to say this could be a good community for ‘practical solarpunk’ discussions. Anything about how to actually build a solarpunk world, the nitty gritty stuff.
After all the OSE is the ultimate ’how-to’ project. It has themes of self-sufficiency and sustainability, as well as a dirty-fingernails approach. Renewable energy topics, especially DIY, small-scale and innovative grid concepts and tools would be things I’d definitely engage with.
Great to see OSE on here, love the project though i must admit i haven't been keeping up with developments lately so looking forward to being able to get involved with this community and catch up on things.
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