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

Well I should have emphasized that it was BASED on the earthlodge, which is a lot of respects is totally different from any apartment building.

Like there was a north and a south side and it was usually inhabited by two families because the Pawnee I think weren't matrilineal.

So it had a central hearth and the area immediately around it for cooking and socializing and then the sleeping quarters were around the circumference on the raised ledge of earth that was there because the central part was excavated, sort of like a kiva maybe with the bench thing around the circumference. The door was on the east side and there was a special place on the west side for keeping sacred things and honoring guests. And you sort of avoided crossing in front of that, going the long way around if you needed to get to the other side.

And there was a smokehole in the roof that you could see the stars through so it was like a model of the universe really, kind of like the door in the kiva makes it sort of the same kind of model.

So that's kind of different probably from the architecture you're used to where I think you kind of try to invest the structure with some sort of aesthetic elements to make it pleasant or you look at traffic patterns or flow but you aren't really modeling the world so the children who are raised there will see how things are for the people, how they live in the world and stuff.

come now ana, after all this time do you think any architecture I did was so detached from its context or those who would inhabit it, really?

aesthics are what happen when you get those other curcial elements right.

traffic patterns and such are parts of the equation, no doubt, but never to the detriment of who lives there, who they live there, what they value, how they will furnish the spaces, how they will relate each to the other, how the sun rises at different times of year, how the wind flows, how hot it gets and how cold, where the waters flow, where these are collected, what one wants to see, what one does not.

do you see?

I see I'm no architect if that's what you mean. I didn't mean to oversimply what you do. You know better than me anyways.

It's just that in most traditional cultures, there aren't any architects because the people, the women mainly, build their own houses using pretty much standard floorplans that are sort of round which kind of reflects the human experience in the world.

That's not true anymore of course for a lot us. We live in square houses or shacks just like everybody else.

I guess Bucky Fuller experimented with the round thing in the 1930s but it didn't fly really. Some people do the geodesic dome thing to enclose things but there's no set pattern I guess. Fuller had all kinds of theories about structural efficiency and reflecting nature in the structure, nature meaning physics mostly. I think he wanted to shelter people without having to use up a lot of resources trying to keep the structures from falling down for example.

So how reflective are the houses that you design of the families? What do they want you to do mostly? I'm presuming, maybe incorrectly, that they have some say in how you do it because they're paying the bills right?

its not the yardstick of money that matters it is that of satisfaction of the most basic needs. if money becomes the motivator there will never ever be satisfaction.

no how, it looks like you may truly be on the way to invisibility. that is tragic if so.

talk to you more elsewhere ... I hope.

What do you mean by that?

Sorry to interrupt your personal discussion.

I will be offline for a while starting tomorrow.
I need to save files tonight and have difficulty posting on hootoo so I felt compelled to mention the following.

WMI -I am concerned about you having recieved a threat of sorts? I wanted to acknowledge I saw a remark about it. Maybe it was in jest but it did not seem so. I did not see an explanation and cannot go there now (my computer) I am hoping it is not a concern *at the very least!

Please take care of yourself woman.
I want you to be safe.

See you all later.

If somebody threatened me, I probably missed it in the flood of vitriol that's been flowing lately. But it wouldn't be the first time.

Thanks for expressing your concerns. I try to take care anyways. The world is and has always been a dangerous place.

Hope you get your computer problems resolved soon.

It was not here, it was referred to on one of your other areas.
Good to know - Nothing to worry about then.

hey hootoo's been giving me all kinds of trouble. persistence and patience pays off. ana, when i was posting earlier in the day, someone was being premoderated and i thought it might be you and so i said what i said a little bit ago. glad to see you're flowing fine. was there another part of my post on money not being a good measure did you not understand. abbi, hope you can do what you need to and will be active again soon.

Hah!! You're talking about Steve's post at RCO, Abbi!!

He was ruminating about killing all the false Steves at Yahoo for being impostors that's all. Oh my how things get distorted sometimes when you're having a little fun, like those funny mirrors they sometimes set up at carnivals.

Well, not to worry at all. If he's going to kill me, I'm dead already, but somehow I don't think I qualify as a false Steve. Sorry it got you worried though.

I was confused about the invisibility part not the money part. That I can sort of understand, but the invisibility had me thinking I was about to be assassinated or something, then Abbi comes on about the threat and I'm thinking, "Hmmm, this in an interesting thing going on. I wonder what it means?"

So, okay let's chalk it up to speed reading errors or something, which I confess I do with Barton all the time, but it hardly ever gets people killed. And that's probably a good thing because otherwise the carnage would be awesome. Hah!!

OH good you know what I was referring to!
I did not see Steves post just a reference to it on yahoo.
So I am glad that is straight before signing off!

I thought this is not good to leave this thread like it was!
OH that feels better.

Thanks also ? for good the wishes.

see you real soon!

Hi you two. My first hubby built an amazing home down in Parker Co in the 70's. In the 70's there were many advantages and tax credits for using alternative energy. The house had many well known proffesions as artist working in it.

It was classic Sante Fe house. Adobe walls- If I recall correctly straw bales where the insulation and filler between the adobe in and out. Outside was brick adobe. The inside was solid except for the west wall which was also adobe brick.
The adobe fireplace was done by a lady whom has devoted her life as generations before did- building the proper adobe fire places for cooking and heat.

Many rounded edges -I loved the feel and color and warmth of that house. Few right angles and sharp curves. It felt alive and looked like a living body with sensual curves and flowing paths, the color of earth and flesh. Th walls were maybe 18-24 inches so the sills we huge and really played with the light as it came in, quite unlike normal modern houses.

It was an extremely efficient house. The walls were more than a foot thick insulated well. It stayed at the same temp much of the year they barely had any energy bills.

The north side was burmed up with soil.
Solar panels for water ,some heating.
Sun room on south collected much of the sun with heat storage and recirculated the air.

It got a lot of attention at the time, winning awards. Featured in Sunset mag and 5280 type local one I believe. Here we are 3o years later and there are very few incentives for building in this way.

That's sort of why I've said it's possible to do this stuff now with existing technologies without waiting for the fireworks display.

Like Steve told me about this old village that's got sort of a D shape groundplan. The curved part of the D is on the north side and is defined by a curtain wall perforated by windows that don't seem to bear much relationship with anything else in the village.

So like he was pondering that one day while a plane was flying overhead and the breeze was blowing in his face and suddenly it hit him, the connection I mean between the D shaped village with the north facing curtain wall, the westerly breeze and the airplane.

The prevailing winds pass over the curtain wall from west to east and since the wall is curved it acts like the upper surface of an airplane wing creating lift. But instead of causing the village to take off it causes the warm air on the south side of the village where the plaza was to migrate through village to the wall on the north side where it's drawn out through those mysterious windows.

This means, even in winter the village stays warmer on the north side than it would otherwise, sort of a passive solar arrangement. And even during the summer it at least encourage a breeze through the village that might not otherwise happen if there were no holes in the wall and maybe even circulate residual warm air in the plaza during the night.

Now I'm kind of skeptical that somebody designed that thing after consulting her/his aeronautical engineering manual, but Steve thinks it might have been something somebody figured out after the village was built and it's kind of amphitheater design got maybe a little too cold for the people in the back or north side apartments. So they made the wall to alleviate that. He's not sure how they would have figured it out but there it is in case anybody's got any brilliant ideas.

Otherwise the design doesn't make too much sense since it's sort of unique, not something readily copied from some other villages or even parts of other villages. It might or might not have any ceremonial significance so who knows?

Now the other thing that's sort of brought up by your Parker house, Abbi, is why the economy apparently doesn't encourage it, why the cheapest houses are frequently the least efficient at retaining heat, which is sort of the main issue with houses?

And why does the real estate market seem to favor huge wasteful houses for single families? Houses that could shelter 30 people or a little more but usually end up sheltering four or less? Many times those people spend very little time in the house so it essentially stands vacant just taking up land and resources for no good community purpose.

I think there's something besides issues about architecture or technology involved here.

And how many housing developers go broke repeatedly? What happens to the resources they waste in doing that? And all the community services that need to be provided like curbs and gutters and police and fire protection and so on in order for people to build trophy houses on cul d'sacs?

It's a very strange and prodigal way of doing things to begin with. That it can make any business sense at all makes me wonder about how sensible business really is. I don't think some people are bearing the full costs of their enterprises here and so the question might be why not? What's the sensible business reason for that and how is it serving the community interest?

The wind could have been a major consideration.
Would it be connected to the curve of the moon or sun?
Is it lined up with any other odd shapes miles away?

I was thinking of chauco Canyon south of here, with it's myserious alignments(sp? wrong) They persisted in such works for 23 generationas (number close )In one or two of the large round ceremonial pits the wall is like that in an interior of one room. I have seen hallways are made in sound rooms of a circular type. Also in homes with rounded walls.
It may have had something to do with the sound of the wind or a speakers voice amplified.

Interesting to think about such possible reasons.

Well, Steve doesn't know but he suspects there probably are elements like that alignment stuff. It's just that the plan is so unique that he sort of wonders why alignments would create it just in one place.

I think in some respects it resembles the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, if that structure were to be taken out of the cave and set down in a valley. But Cliff Palace isn't the only structure like that at Mesa Verde so the question then is why wasn't it replicated more if that's what this is about? That is if it was intended to duplicate the cave situation?

So I really don't know.

That whole culture is sort of foreign to me in a way once they get beyond the pithouse phase where the only pertinent alignments seem to involve the smokehole which is also the entrance. And I know for a fact that some alignments had nothing whatever to do with architecture really like the ones discovered based on the thing I told about in Pictographs but were simply indicated in the landscape. So who knows?

Amplifying a voice? Well, I sort of doubt it. It's not like people were inclined to deliver or listen to great, lengthy orations directed at the entire community.

Mostly people talked about stuff in smaller groups that interfaced with other small groups and word passed very quickly that way. In other words the Greek oratory or theater idea just doesn't make much sense in the cultural context like it would if we were looking at the Areopagus or something like that.

Maybe the closest thing to the type of public oratory we might suggest is the Muslim cryer calling people to prayer and in that context height has been preferred over some rather elaborate architectural device to amplify the voice. But who knows?

And trying to identify it in some unique sacred context doesn't work either because the house is a sacred context, maybe the most sacred, so anything associated with it automatically becomes sacred as well and how do you distinguish the features of the architecture in that fashion?

You can't really. It ain't like the sacred space defined by a temple or church that's never used for anything else but certain, restricted ceremonies or rituals.

It's just a different way of viewing the universe I guess that isn't like how you do it and I'm not sure how to build a bridge to make that happen with words so you can understand what I mean really.

I understand all to be sacred, all is connected.

All else is speculation by me (speaking only for me) -
The alignments of structures in places span 1oo's of miles.

It is impossible to imagine relating one structure (or person- or plant) to the whole, without knowing or believing the larger exists.
Which does not mean that any one piece is less important or imperfect.

Yes, the connections are there and we acknowledge them.

The going and coming are there along the straight tracks, the race courses or whatever that the swallows follow, and we see those when the boys run here and there urged on by their families, or the girls run in preparation for building families. The stars are there too and we connect them with the seasons, the changes of the fruitful earth.

But everything is profane too. And things sort of go back and forth a lot sometimes that way between profane and sacred. And in that way the sacred becomes practical and alive, and living becomes sacred.