Hi, I'm Vinay, designer of the hexayurt. My Google Alert pinged me about this, so I thought I'd turn up and chat. If you have any questions about the hexayurt, I'll be here for the next few days to answer.

Hexayurts aren't just for temporary situations - built out of higher spec materials, like Thermax HD, a $500 hexayurt should be good for twenty years or more in the outdoors. Then you add another hundred or so dollars (a bit more until we get volume) for the infrastructure pack, and you have lights, heat, cooking, sterile water, toilets... the whole bit.

Add to that the fact that it's all either off-the-shelf (solar panels, the stove, building materials) or public domain (the shelter design itself) - anybody can build these, and we're looking for partners right now to do commercial development. Just take the design off us, start building units, and we are completely certain that the technology trickle down will eventually put these free IP buildings directly into the hands of the world's poorest, where they are needed most.

Very nice and I will pass this along to some folks who are thinking about nomadic housing for places in Vermont and/or Jamaica.

However, I wonder how you go from hexayurt to what the 6/27/99 NY Times Magazine described as the two housing kits international agencies distributed for rebuilding Kosovo.

Kit 1
intended to help families construct a single habitable room

75 square meters of heavy plastic sheeting for temporary roofing
40 square meters of clear plastic sheeting for temporary windows
2 wood boards for window frames
60 one meter wood strips to secure the plastic sheeting
20 meters of adhesive tape
2 kilograms of mails, various sizes
staple gun and staples
hammer
crosscut hand saw
shovel and bucket
Cost per kit: $200

Kit 2
intended to winterize a single room

one interior door and frame
one or two glazed windows
spray foam insulation for sealing doors and windows
floor insulation
stove
Cost per kit: $325

Is the radar dome included or is that extra? (What is it?!)

Sounds like a good concept, and I would love to see these bought by the Red Cross or DoD.

Just seems like it is just a compilation of ideas.

I read your PDF presentation Vinay and found it quite informative. It would appear, however, that a couple of the links are broken and should be corrected but other than that I just have a couple questions. I was unable to find any info on Andy Buxton's SleepBreeze and I'd be interesting in getting a link to his website to take a look. I was also wondering about www.biolet.com. Their products seem to start at $1200 and go up so I was wondering how that fit into your projected pricing. Thanks.

"Just seems like it is just a compilation of ideas."

That's what the best stuff often is. Implementation is important.

While its nice to see my work highlighted on your site (and the hexayurt project has the potential to change many peoples lives so I want the info spread far and wide) I would humbly request that you at least mention if not link to the post on my blog that the the hugg link points to.

http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/03/17/the-hexayurt-cheap-simple-shelter-for-people-in-need/

In fact check out an in depth interview I did with Mr. Gupta here.

http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/03/18/10-questions-vinay-gupta-creator-of-the-hexayurt/

Thank you

Looks like it could be valuable. It reminds me of the buildings that would pop out of suitcases on the Jetsons. :)

Yes: the Hexayurt is a "whole system" made from parts, each of which is also a whole system. The Stove Team are incredibly smart people. The solar panel companies are rocket scientists. Dow's board products are amazingly high quality (apart from the blasted fiberglass). My contribution wasn't even invent the idea of an "autonomous building" - I got that idea from Amory Lovins, who had developed it under the name "trenchelss housing."

No, what I did was said "I want to build a housing system I myself would be comfortable living in for two years" and used that as the minimum standard for my solution. I designed for myself and my family, not for some "other."

And that creative leap is why this is a good system.

Gmoke: wood and tools are expensive. That's why we use polystyene and tape, and all it takes is a knife.

The "radar dome" is an inflatable satellite dish called a GATR - http://gatr.com/ is the website of the lads who invented it.

The beauty of it is that the system weighs 70 lbs and fits in a big duffle bag. An ordinary satellite dish weights about 800 lbs and ships in a cargo plane, often getting caught up in customer or shipped late, so you don't have coms at the disaster site. With a GATR, the thing flies with your staff on a passenger plane, and they haul it through customs with them, and then take it out to the disaster site in a car or even on a donkey. Then you plug in the right routers and you've got broadband, VOIP etc. from Day 0 or Day 2, not Day 18. It's magnificent kit.

Andy Buxton's company is here: http://sleepbreeze.co.uk/ they're still keeping very quiet about the exact nature of the system, but suffice it to say it's very very clever, very small, and I really look forward to being able to add a system from Andy to the Hexayurt package. He's not going after the developing world market first, so the initial units will be more expensive than our other gear, but within a couple of years we'll have something at a price we can all work with!

Composting toilets: yes, they say $1200. That's because 90% of the effort and energy goes into making it look like a classic Wastern toilet. We are pretty sure that we can take a standard five gallon plastic bucket, and design a venting lid which will turn it into a composting toilet, for a cost of about $20 per unit. But we just don't have the development resources to finish that right now.

Right now, what we want and need are commercial companies to take on this design and start manufacturing them for recreational markets. Make some money, spread the idea around, and let the magic of Open Source and the Public Domain commons do it's work. Remember: the design is free, no patent, no restriction to copying, to starting a business based on it, nothing.

It's the Linux of housing.

http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/03/18/10-questions-vinay-gupta-creator-of-the-hexayurt/

by the way, is another article that just went up today which gives a lot more background and some high level conceptual stuff.

Hi, I’m Andy Buxton, founder of SleepBreeze Ltd.
Thanks for your interest in my company and products. Our website is www.sleepbreeze.co.uk

We’re proud to be working with Vinay and the Hexayurt Crew in delivering a complete package for widespread deployment.

For anyone interested, my background was as a UK MoD scientist, and for many years I was their in-house expert on microclimate cooling systems. Microclimate cooling is a technique for equipping a soldier or pilot with a thermal protection layer that actively extracts heat from the body, thereby offsetting heat stress. This technique has its origins with RAF pilots back in the 1940s who faced the following dilemma. When flying at altitude they needed to keep warm by wearing bulky flying clothing. However, when on standby on the ground, cockpit temperatures were so high that they were prone to succumbing to heat strain. Cockpit air conditioning systems were very fuel hungry, which impacted on the loads these aircraft could carry. The Farnborough boffins took the innovative step of concentrating the available cooling on the pilot’s skin surface. The first systems pumped air through a pipe network sewn into the pilot’s clothing. With the advent of chemical weapons, closed-loop liquid cooled systems were developed at Farnborough – these eliminated the risk of pumping toxic agents onto the skin, a problem with air ventilated suits. These Liquid Cooled systems were demonstrated to NASA who adopted the technology for their astronauts. These systems are now used widely. For example some years ago I did some work with the Subaru World Rally, some motor sport teams and a F1 team designing systems for them.

One feature of these systems – to date – has been that they have only been used by specialists. I founded SleepBreeze Ltd to change this. What kind of energy saving could be made if many more people thought about using microclimate cooling rather than cooling their whole home or office?

We’re anticipating launching our first products this coming July/August. Target price will be in the range £30-40. Please bear with us as we populate our website with more info as we move closer to launch. Hopefully you’ll find useful info on there to help cope with heatwaves.

I started working with the Hexayurt Crew for a number of reasons. First of all there’s a synergy with our low energy system and the power budget that is available. Secondly, we’ve all seen images from around the world of both natural and man-made disasters. Chances are we’ve dug into our pockets for a convenient charity on those occasions. When Vinay approached me about a low energy shelter cooling this seemed an opportunity to turn some of my expertise to good use. We’ve worked closely since that time.

All best wishes,
Andy

ok.....so where can I buy one??

Natalie,

Apologies for not replying to your post sooner.
Assuming that you are refering to getting hold of a SleepBreeze cooling system, as opposed to one of Vinay's Hexayurts the answer is as follows.

We're working hard to get the product ready by August. Tooling is well underway. We plan to launch an internet shop for those wishing to purchase the product. Our url is www.sleepbreeze.co.uk

If you'd like to drop me an email at info@sleepbreeze.co.uk I can make sure that you're kept informed about our progress and alerted to the opening of the shop.

It would be useful to know which part of the world you are from so that we can ensure that the local safety requirements are met and that we can source the relevant power adaptor for you.

kind regards, Andy

How do you secure these yurts so they don't blow away? There don't seem to be any hard points to tie to?

Hi everyone,
I'm in an emergency situation needing to provide shelter and provisions for myself and my three children.
I'm looking for a suitable peice of unregistered land to site 'something on' using money raised from selling a seconhand car.I also have a reasonable range of old tools.
My life situation is really in meltdown and Ineed to do something urgently:can any of you in the hexayurt community suggest building plans,suitable materials and a system where I might provide sustainable basic services for the young people that will work in our circumstances?
It looks like the remit or allowance for getting the job done is going to be the value of the car-about £500sterling!
I and my eldest son Tobias are both of a practical bent.
Any observations,help or suggestions will be really appreciated.
Perhaps having overcome this crisis I can then pass what I have learned to other souls who find themselves in desperate straits or for whom the system is not serving!
Thank You,
Be Well and Happy,
Richard