ARCHIMEDE INSTITUTE


THE PERFECT DEMOLITION SYSTEM

When a hurricane passes over a house, the first part of the transit has winds coming from a fixed direction, swirling in gusts and dragging a vibrating tail behind the house, especially if it is one with square corners. Think of the swirls behind a large semi on the highway. Materials and connectors are quickly loosened but might still hold together.
Then comes the restful eye with no winds at all, after a maximum velocity was attained near the eye. Think of 185 mph as was topped on our Sint Maarten condos!
Then comes the wall of pain: from the opposite direction new winds hit suddenly with a punch equal to those just before the eye. What was loosened is now detached or broken off, flying away to destroy other houses. Those winds are also a lot wetter, in most cases.
Think of you one bends things in either directions to break them. That's what a decent hurricane does. In some cases, the hurricane will travel very slowly, compounding the damages. Luis in Sint Maarten had the bad idea to shake and vibrate it's way through the island in 12 hours, enough to disable the island for tourism for almost three years!
And we had no damage to speak of, in spite of the fact that concrete block houses all around had to be demolished and rebuilt.
Satisfaction for us, as those years of design and wind-tunnel testing had finally paid off in a conclusive way. The weaker hurricanes like David and Frederick and even Hugo did not provide the proof we needed. We needed a monster and we got  it on the 5th of September 1995. I was there. Thanks Luis!
Jacques

VARIETY AND ADAPTABILITY WITH 'ABREFS'

Spontaneous groupings adapting to both in-place sociology and ground conditions are the main feature of our 'ABREFS' -Economy of land use results and, when the users have a hand in putting these together,  pride of ownership, albeit temporarily, an attractive bonus.

HIGHER DENSITY GROUPINGS

The Domus system can me maximized for higher densities quite easily. It's remarquable soundproofing allows for such economy of land and resources.

FLOATING HOUSES

Archimede was seriously considered by developers to form floating recreational housing. Both mobile and anchored, these sturdy shells are ideal for large lake sites tourism.

TYPICAL CONSTRUCTION STEPS FOR STILT HOUSING