h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Perhaps you should vist my web site www.archi.ma/eng
It is 'just up' and will develop shortly;

Will do!

At the moment it tells me
Cette page n'existe pas !!!

Is that like
Ceci n'est-pas une pipe?

Close the thread then, I don't want every man and his h2g2 dog there!

I should feel honored then... How exactly do I close the thread?

Goodness knows but I feel sure someone out there will put you down and put yor right. Sorry, my fault for starting it.

Alright, I'll try! I'm sure it would be a nice page if it existed!

http://www.archi.ma/en/
or
http://archnet.org/shared/community-member.tcl?user_id=73004

Nice site, nice design philosophy!
My profs are split up between "Form follows Function" and "Function folows Form" - but both agree that "Form allows Function" is just not radical enough...

Do you mind if I pass it on to Tavaron? She's also studying architecture...

Thanks and no objections to you passing on the link.
So we are back to the form following function debate - it was just dying out when I started in the 1960's and Corbusier and dirty concrete were all in fashion. My view - leanrt in Nigereia - is that there is no good building that isn't well detailed but that good details don't necessarily make a good building. It is interesting to go back after 15 or twenty years and see how your buildings have 'grown up'. Thank God - I have not yet had any nasty surprises yet. The purpose of a building does - to some extent - dictate it's form but you can then make it look like whatever you want. I have build 15 mosques - they are essentially all the same but thay are entirely different because the 'fashion' changes from country to country.
Good luck anyway

Yes, that debate is still going on... Most of the examples we're shown are Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Arne Jacobsen, International Style and concrete are still all the rage... In fact, my current project is an olympic swimming pool, and they've just made us take out all wood and stone and replace it with steel and concrete for aesthetic reasons...

When you learn your materials - you can build. I built my house (or rathere re-build my wife's grandmother's house) for $0. Mud and stone 15° cooler in the summer, 10° warmer in the winter. Alesh? I learnt all I know from builders - nothing from professors. Incidentally I di get thrown out of two schools of architecture twice. I t didn't stop me qualifying nor getting nominated for the Aga Khan award for architecture.

on that!

I am busy helping my mother renovate the half-timbered 1820 farmhouse she bought, it was "restored" in the 50s, but so badly that they did more damage than good... It's fun arguing with my profs about the advantages of wood, mud and straw as building materials; he wants to hermetically seal everything and then use mechanical ventilation; even his wood stoves don't work with no electricity!

My house here in Morocco - or rather my wife's house - cost exactly nothing - mind you guarrying 25 cm m of stone hurt my back a bit. The cement is mud. Curiously it is 15° cooler in the summer and 10° warmer in the winter, than the houses built out of concrete blocks. I used to in a half timbered house - Clifford Chambers Rectory. It was over 800 years old and still perfectly good. Youy are right - a lot of the old materials are better but we still have to learn to understand them. I think that all architects should build their own house before being let loose on the world.

My house here in Morocco - or rather my wife's house - cost exactly nothing - mind you quarrying 25 cm m of stone hurt my back a bit. The cement is mud. Curiously it is 15° cooler in the summer and 10° warmer in the winter, than the houses built out of concrete blocks. I used to in a half timbered house - Clifford Chambers Rectory. It was over 800 years old and still perfectly good. Youy are right - a lot of the old materials are better but we still have to learn to understand them. I think that all architects should build their own house before being let loose on the world.

Didn't you still have to pay for materials?

I wonder how many architects would build differently if forced to live in their own houses, or how many childrens' book aouthors adopt a less annoying style if forced to read the book over and over again every night for years (I was designated reader for my sister) I am seeiing this house renovating project as a kind of internship, and 12 weeks of working on construction sites during vacations are now a required part of the curriculum. Also, we have 1 semester working in an architect's office before we get to write our thesis. All in all, I think that's a fairly good system, only possible because I go to one of two Unis in Germany that does an 8-Semester BSc...

No, I didn’t have to pay anything at all. My nephew was digging a cess pit. The stome looked OK to me – similar to the shillet in Devon (where I did build my house as a student) I dug my own hole – quite a big one – three hours a day starting 4:30 am and nobody disturbed me. The stone was the stone, the rest –when sieved - was the cement and ‘aggregate’ for mud concrete. Fatima – my wife was a wonderful labourer and learnt about stone – what was good – what was bad. The lintols are also mud – well clay actually – the same as the women use to make the bread ovens. They are arches, work entirely in compression and, as long as they don’t get wet – will last indefinitely. Water for the work was from a well. 6O gallons a day – and I had to both draw it from the well and wheel it the 500m back to the house.
Five years later the place is just fine. We now even have the luxury of electricity although it is restricted to one light and my Mac.
Incidentally the fridge uses neither electricity or gas. It doesn’t actually make ice but it keeps the beer cool. Any idea how?

Evaporation? Running water? Old-fashioned icebox?

Evaaporation - sot on.
How

Spot on - the Hand and Raquet Slate Club got the better of my triping.