Built on a granitic ledge high above the road, this house north of Quebec City was built on stilts to better fit that rock without dynamite, but also to better resist lateral ways of a moderate earthquake zone. Made up of 30-40 panels that were slid up the hill on a temporary set of parallell wooden rails, the shell was completed in just a few days. Few systems allow for such easy construction on difficult sites. The happy owners spent $30,000 for a house that cost $200 a year! to heat in frigid Quebec.
(1983 figures need to be ajusted). The original concept of this house was made to fit arctic needs, mainly that it is forbidden to build directly on the frozen permafrost, as any house would quickly bury itself in the bog when the heat losses attack the frozen ground. Sales farther and farther to the south made Archimede staff quickly realize that the house had plenty of other qualities to appeal to a more universal group of buyers as far south as Venezuela and Tanzania.
Built on a granitic ledge high above the road, this house north of Quebec City was built on stilts to better fit that rock without dynamite, but also to better resist lateral ways of a moderate earthquake zone. Made up of 30-40 panels that were slid up the hill on a temporary set of parallell wooden rails, the shell was completed in just a few days. Few systems allow for such easy construction on difficult sites. The happy owners spent $30,000 for a house that cost $200 a year! to heat in frigid Quebec. (1983 figures need to be ajusted). The original concept of this house was made to fit arctic needs, mainly that it is forbidden to build directly on the frozen permafrost, as any house would quickly bury itself in the bog when the heat losses attack the frozen ground. Sales farther and farther to the south made Archimede staff quickly realize that the house had plenty of other qualities to appeal to a more universal group of buyers as far south as Venezuela and Tanzania.
