Two interesting accomodation stories this week:
A Moon Cottage
A joint venture between scientists and an artist is attempting to construct the first ever house on the moon with the help of a robot called Roony.
Researchers at Mälardalen University are combining their skills with Mikael Genberg to build a robot that can be sent to the moon to construct a little red cottage to symbolise mankind’s achievements. They hope that in 2012 Roony will travel in a a small cabin within a space rocket, find a suitable vacant lot on the moon and create the first lunar building. The final design of the cottage has not yet been decided upon, but it will have a mass of 5kg, occupy 6litres of transport space and the final living area will be 10 square metres in size.
Straw House
Earthquake simulations have shown that a straw house designed by engineers at the University of Nevada withstood an 82-ton force – 200% more acceleration and shaking than was recorded in 1994 at the time of the largest measured ground acceleration in the world.
Using ideas from houses built in Pakistan by civil engineer Darcey Donovan, the straw house measured 14-by-14-foot, with gravel foundations and clay plaster walls. It was subjected to seven tests (each one more forceful than the previous) and despite some violent swaying, cracking at the seams and a cloud of dust and straw it remained standing.
The experiments were used to test Donovan’s innovative design for straw-bale houses using bales as structural and load bearing components as well as for insulation.
With earthquakes occurring at night, such as the Kashmir earthquake of 2005, fatalities are often as a result of poorly built houses collapsing on people whilst they sleep in their beds unaware. The 2005 earthquake resulted in 100,000 deaths and 3.3million people left homeless. Donvan’s work is thus a key development in suitable housing in earthquake prone areas, with her designs costing half the amount of conventional earthquake-safe construction in Pakistan. She is also working hard to train local residents how to build their own straw homes and use the readily available materials of clay soil, straw and gravel.
Donovan has been quoted on Science Daily outlining her future aims: “Our goal is to get the largest number of poor people in earthquake-safe homes. We want to make it as affordable as possible so they build a safe home. We want to save lives.”