Finale

A Very Yurty Breakfast

The thing about sleeping outside is that I always wake up when the sun rises, and I can only roll over so many times until I give up and get out of bed. At 5:45 am.
At least it gave me plenty of time to make breakfast. Sadly, the empty egg crates were discarded. They, like their 3,000+ brethren, will be recycled. And made into more egg crates. I'm just hoping to stop dreaming of egg crates, and/or having nightmares about rainstorms the night before our final presentation. Now let us never speak of egg crates again.

Twenty Ways to Reuse an Egg Crate

Apparently when we started this project, I did not do due diligence in searching online for spontaneous egg crate usage. Here is a fantastic website with 20 ways to Reuse an Egg Crate. Below are pictures from some of the more interesting ones, which include more lighting solutions, more furniture, apparel, decoration and toys. Maybe we aren't yet the world's experts in egg crates after all

And for a few more artistic pieces (and some other spontaneous architecture, including the Heidelberg Project I showed images from in the first month of class) see another post on the same website

And Some Decor

And for spicing up the living space, how about an egg crate vase, seen here, or an egg crate table, seen here.

Spontaneous Lighting Ideas

Here's an idea we might use for the lighting of our structure. See more images here
Another egg crate lamp can be seen here.

Spanning

After the penultimate review, we arranged our structure into its final form. However, it was clear that while the rear section, supported by two 8mm rebars could support itself, the narrower front section could not. As a temporary measure, we introduced a column inside, "borrowing" one of Bang's tubes. The result is a rather nice entryway, and a structure reminiscent of the tradition dwelling on Tatooine.

The next step was to try and strengthen the front half, so that the column would be unnecessary. Since the rebar was so successful in the rear half, we decided to try adding some to the front as well. However, we were concerned about reopening the whole structure, and instead decided to try and insert the rebars with the structure semi-intact. To make this easier, we elected to use 6mm, smooth rebar. However, this did not prove to be strong enough, as the building stood initially but experienced delayed structural failure.

After much deliberation, we elected to add another 8 mm rebar to the front section. So far, it appears like we have success!

A short video of the interior of our structure:

What remains is to complete the floor, minor rearrangements of the envelope, some decisions regarding skylights and partitions, and a general cleanup.

Some Assembly Required

Pictures of us putting together our penultimate pod.

Enhancement Surgery

In our last post, we explained that we were going to try and see how large a span we could create with our existing technology. We called in the best plastic surgeons and ended up with some Pamela Anderson sized curves, which were just barely sturdy.
Inside, the structure was quite warm and snugly, actually it was surprisingly pleasant. But seeing as how we had maxed out the spanning capability of the structure, and could not think of another trick to increase its spanning capacity in pure tension, we were faced with a choice between two options: 1) Limit the size of our structure to slightly smaller that what is shown above, create three separate pods, and connect them together. OR 2) introduce another structural element, which could assist us increasing the span. We decided that due to our limited supply of egg crates and a desire to make a substantial inside space rather than a cocoon, that we would do the latter.
We decided that we would try to do as minimal a change as possible. In our structure, the wires had previously acted entirely in tension. Some of them were even completely flexible, ie they had no compressional strength. We kept the basic form, changing it to create a large space for the two girls and smaller space for the one boy. We analyzed the form and decided that if three of the wires could also act in compression, we would be able to greatly increase the span. Therefore, we are widening the pod from 9 columns to 10, reconfiguring it to make these two separate but attached spaces - a low, narrow space and a high, wide space - and introducing three stronger wires.
Below is the new scheme, as compared to the old one.

Peanuts

After trying to stand our egg crates up vertically, and the collosal structural that followed, we reexamined the possibility of forming a dome. The main obstacle has always been getting the egg crates into a sturdy dome shape that can support itself. As of yesterday, we had some encouraging signs, as visible in the pictures. We deepened the furrow in the middle of the structure, we're experimenting with a thicker wire, and mostly we have lengthened it. Our immediate goal is to see how large a span we can create.

Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out and...

Our last experiment involved building a egg crate sheet that was 2 meters long and 215 wide (tall). After trying to stand it up and noting that it could not support itself, we decided to try stressing the middle strip so as to create a double "peanut" curve. Then we decided that we would try to double the size to 4 meters long, such that we could create a full cylinder (yurt), hoping that it would then be able to support itself. Here are the preliminary results. Note that the floor and ceiling have come along nicely.

Experimentation

Today we assembled a two meter length of our 9-crate-long sheet, to test how it would respond to being stressed. We were pleased with the shape it took, which was also comfortable to lie in. However, the shape was not as strong as we had hoped. We believe that it can be strengthened by adding another curve in the middle of the structure, and this is what we intend to try next.
The form which the crates took has also led us to reconsider how our final structure will look. We discussed creating three distinct pods and connecting them centrally. Continued experimentation in the coming days will hopefully help us decide what to do.