ARCHIMEDE INSTITUTE


LIVING HIGH...SAFE AND DRY

This is the original sketch by Poirier of the elevated Archimede concept. Almost one thousand such houses were built worldwide. They were assembled in a few days and finished in a few weeks at the most. In several cases, the utilities were built concurrently with the shell erection, an advantage with stilt construction. Made up of 30 to 60 panels, any local crew could be hired to set them up with a small crane or by hand. It is ironic that in our ignorance of worldwide construction problems, we did not at that time see how well suited they were to resist tsunamis and earthquake. But we had done a wind-tunnel testing session at the University of Laval in Quebec City. We were aiming our market at the Arctic where fierce winds were clocked and where the need to build above ground was well established. In our first brochures we were already touting these as 'hurricane-proof' . It took several tropical hurricanes of Force 4 and 5 to establish these as the 'wonders of the Caribbean'.