Archimede Institute

THE INSTITUTE WELCOMES YOU

2020-11-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

IMPORTANT NEWS: PLEASE GO TO BAJA6.COM AS WE HAVE AN EXCITING NEW BEGINNING WITH A NEW WEB SITE BEING BUILT UNDER THE HEADING OF BAJA6 FOUNDATION.

A heartily felt welcome to all who have reached this site. still being completed We are a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of sturdier and cheaper hurricane and tsunami shelters, refugee and general housing for disaster prone sites. We appreciate 'accidental tourists' to our site since they often bring us something unusual. We are indeed looking for people with ordinary faults and extraordinary qualities. If you are someone with extraordinary faults and ordinary qualities, please go somewhere else. Although we pay travel and expense, our members get no salary. It goes without saying that our recruitment effort is mostly aimed at recent retirees with time on their hand and a specific experience as outlined below.
We will be recruiting new members with skills and experience in natural disaster management, designers with special interest in forensics. We are also seeking people with knowledge of World Bank , Red Cross and other similar NGOs methods. We need structural analysts to investigate the properties of other Archimede or Catalan solid for building shelters. We need engineers for structural design evaluation and also to supervise testing at our lab. We need industrialists, purchasing agents and other specialists in logistics, customs, maritime transport etc...
Our first recruits will be those with skills in fund-raising! (Logical, no?) Actually, anyone with a strong desire to be part of this 12 year project should join us for a most rewarding experience. You can get more details by reading all the posts coming up at the WHY button above.
You can Skype or eMail us at the WEB button to the right. It is real pleasure to already have readers in over 50 countries! Help us grow by forwarding chosen pieces to your friends: you can do that by clicking on the little envelope below each post.
Many thanks for doing all of that...Now enjoy the site! You can comment on some posts and you also invite you to collaborate your own ideas into your own post; just write us directly at jacquesbpoirier@gmail.com

Jacques Bernard Poirier
Director

IN BRIEF...

2010-12-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

In 1980 our director designed a manufactured house that could be erected on the Canadian permafrost zones, one that would be raised to better resist the fierce winds and to avoid the potentially disastrous melting of the soil below it. To that end he joined forces with Placide Poulin and his manufacturing group to create Archimede Systems Inc., setting up a plant in eastern Québec. There Jacques designed presses to inject panels with high-grade insulating rigid foams. He chose the rhomboid geometry for strength, but also for the convenient manufacturing feature that all panels are nearly identical except for the openings. Before a few were erected in the Nunavik, the model caught on in the lower latitudes, thanks partly because of the high insulation values and the low price. Two years and $12M produced later, the houses were being built with little changes in the tropics; several of them were later hit by hurricanes Hugo, Frederic, David and a host of minor storms, all with little or no damage. They are still today the story of legends. But Archimede Systems Inc. had advertised the house as 'hurricane-proof' after conducting tests at the Laval University Civil Engineering wind tunnel in

Quebec City. Yet the theory was there already, for the strength and for the low wind drag factors of these dodecahedron shapes. This was no fluke. Neither was the earthquake resistance that was factored in at the onset of the Archimede program. Rhombic dodecahedron construction is notoriously resistive to horizontal shear in any direction. When raised on pillars that absorb the shocks, the deal is closed.
However, there was a fluke: twenty five years later, after the Indonesian tsunami, Poirier met some scientists confirming that this Arctic building solutions would be perfect for tsunami resistance. Actually it was almost perfect. Something small had to be invented. But that's a story better covered in the 'Tsunami' keyword.

OUR PRODUCTS

2010-12-02T23:49:00.000-08:00

LIGHTWEIGHT TEMPORARY SHELTERS

'ABREF' -A fully-tested simple windproof refugee tent not requiring guy wires
Groupings of several 'ABREFS' to form varied clusters more suitable for refugee quality of life

REFUGES AND PROTECTIVE SHELTERS

'TSUTSU ' - A low-cost and quickly erected permanent tsunami shelter that can handle even the worse water rise while protecting over 200 people. Usable at other times as a community center, school or medical clinic.
'OPERA' -A heli-portable operating room that is air-conditioned and fully aseptic, capable of being erected in one hour from its air cargo crate.
Groupings of several 'OPERAS' to form medical clusters for disaster areas.
'LOGI' - Rigid modular shelter system for semi-permanent lodging and office space for NGO workers in disaster areas. Re-combinable in groupings called 'LOGIS' that are extremely flexible.
'LOSO' - A low-cost social housing system for semi-permanent or permanent housing for areas subjected to occasional cyclonic force winds.
Groupings of 'LOSOS' for higher density needs without harming privacy.
'TECO' - A technical shelter for equipment (microwave, diesel, generation, etc..)

'EXTREME' HOUSING

'SAFO' - A low-cost tsunami-safe housing solution to be manufactured internationally under license .
'RESO' -A medium cost resort housing solution for tsunami, hurricane and earthquake prone areas
Groupings of several 'RESOS' to form varied clusters that are safe, yet lively and attractive.
'ARCTA' - a warm and windproof arctic house for permafrost areas
BAJA DOS' - an earthquake proof and hurricane proof housing for hillside construction.
BAJA TRES' - an earthquake, tsunami and hurricane proof housing for seaside construction

OTHER BUILDINGS (design only)

'TOWO' - A low to medium cost hurricane, earthquake and tsunami-safe high-rise building suitable for office or hotel building program. The prefabrication techniques are to be licensed internationally.

PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT- Design and Fabrication, training etc.. (design only)

'MUCHO' - A high output panel injection system that can be shipped anywhere for the production of large-scale reconstruction projects involving urethane filled panels.A high output panel injection system that can be shipped anywhere for the production of large-scale reconstruction projects involving urethane filled panels.

OUR SERVICES

2010-12-01T04:59:00.000-08:00

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS OF RECONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS AFTER NATURAL DISASTERS
Our specialty is analysing complicated problems on a tight schedule. We mostly redirect insurance forensic work to specialist firms, yet we always write the overall reports and recommendations ourselves.
We certainly include the human and financial problems factored into the problem-solving equations.
ANALYSIS OF CONSTRUCTION PRODUCT AND PROCESSES
We take pride in keeping up to date with all international techniques, their comparative costs and human factors. This is the baseline for comparing all our presented solutions.
We have had experience under most latitudes, as opposed to most architects who spend their entire life under a single environment.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

DISASTER PROTECTIVE DESIGN
We have built several groups of houses that have gone through major disasters with no damage, protecting their occupants and saving lives. This web site will show some of these.
PROTOYPING AND TESTING
We are equiped to rapidly test the proposed solutions in housing*, both for structural performance and for manufacturing and erection time studies.

LIMITED PRODUCTION RUNS AND TRAINING

TRIAL RUNS FOR NEW TECHNOLOGIES.
We intend to organize these trials runs of 2 to 12 houses to test out the equipment and the methods. The product is often use to 'seed' larger projects and further troubleshoot transport to site, local implementation and acceptance of proposed units.
TEACHING PRODUCTION RUNS
We insist in training plant superintendents here while using similar equipment and facilities. The products are erected locally to train crew chiefs sent here by our client.

TEACHING AND LICENSING OF TECHNOLOGY

THE FUTURE OF THE INSTITUTE.
In 4-6 years, there should be enough maturity in our methods to allow us to teach them on a full-time basis.
LICENSING:
As described earlier, our licensing program is essentially free to developing nations while royalty-based for more advanced nations. We hope to have in a few years mirror organizations capable of spreading concepts similar to ours.

TESTING FOR HURRICANES - THE NEXT LAB

2010-07-20T07:34:00.001-07:00

ARCHIMEDE NO-WASTE APPROACH

2010-05-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

From the start we chose the rhomboid geometry that is made up of identical parallelograms. Just like with squares and rectangles, parallelograms can be made up of rectangular sheathing without wasting any of it.
Here is a demonstration: typically, our standard roof panels can be made up of two 4x8 sheets with no waste, one being cut diagonally , as shown in diagram below. This represent the roof of one 180 ft2 hexagonal module.

This stronger 'vaulted' surface is made up of three planes, each one made up of of-the-shelf building materials. You need to love that since it also applies to walls and underside panels (in the case of stilt houses )

EARTHQUAKE, HURRICANE AND TSUNAMI PROOF

2010-04-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

'MUCHOMAS' - THE ULTIMATE RAPID RECONSTRUCTION SOLUTION

2010-04-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

'ARCTA' - THE PERFECT ARCTIC SHELTER

2010-04-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

Design with the help of Dr. Richard Chill, the late famous Canadian arctic construction specialist, these Arctic houses have been used for offices, homes and in one case, a caribou meat cold room!
They are exposed to high winds and need to be raised so as not to melt down into the permafrost. The three-legged solutions are easily ajustable, as with a tripod, and the shade provided under the house keeps the sun from playing havoc with the grounds. Interestingly, the cavity under the floor is put to good use: in one module, an oil tank, in the other fresh water, and in the third, a holding tank for refuse. All Archimede houses have a fabulous shell to keep the occupants warm, sometimes associated with quadruple glazed windows that never condensate. But the sub-floor cavity in ALL OF THEM is a warm air distribution plenum, a feature that is equally appreciated in our ski resort.

'TOWO', A SMALL EARTHQUAKE AND HURRICANE RESISTANT TOWER

2010-04-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

Engineered and fully componentized including stucture and envelope, this economical small building can withstand the most severe earthquakes without incuring habitual costly repairs or worse, rebuilding.

INJECTION PRESSES : 1980, FIRST GENERATION

2010-04-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

First was a vertical wedge action pair of presses designed by us in 1980.
strong and efficient, these machines lacked the flexibity of the lighter and cheaper later models.

RIGID INSULATION IS EMINENTLY SUSTAINABLE

2010-04-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

Rigid urethane insulation has been used in the building and construction industries since the 1950’s. Over the past 40 years, in excess of 500 million square metres of insulated panels have been manufactured by the continuous lamination process and have been successfully used in roof and wall cladding applications worldwide.

The superior long term performance of metal faced insulated panels with rigid urethane cores is now widely recognised by building investors and designers when compared with site assembled, multi-part, built-up cladding systems. This has resulted in significant growth for this type of construction system.

The main reasons for this growth are:

Increasingly stringent building regulations, which in many countries require the use of insulation to comply with energy efficiency and CO₂ emission targets.
The rising cost of fuel and energy. Effective thermal insulation can reduce HVAC / heating costs by up to 40% wherever it is installed.
The environmental cost of energy production is also a factor which now needs to be considered. The burning of fossil fuels for energy production is estimated to contribute 80% of the world’s CO₂emissions. These green-house gases contribute to the problem of global warming, and so the conservation of energy is the most direct and cheap way to reduce CO₂ emissions and thus control global warming.
Industry experts estimate that worldwide insulation of buildings to optimum standards could reduce global energy requirements by more than 10%.
Rapid site assembly and early completion of a building project is demanded by investors and insulated sandwich panels provide ‘single fix’ fast on-site installation.
Investors require superior specification, low maintenance and long-term product performance.

HIGH CAPACITY LOW-COST PRESS

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CLIENTS

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We deal with international organizations that either sponsor help teams, perform design and guidance or otherwise are directly involved at producing shelters and reconstructive solutions after local disaters. Our first clients were from Bengladesh, Armenia, Mexico, Italy and Japan. We are now expanding our reach through a central office in Paris manned by Luc Piché, a high official of the Canadian Embassy there.
We also work with housing manufacturers to help them perfect their products aimed at the reconstruction market.
Finally we are actively involved with a few refugee tent manufacturers as well as with their end users, be they Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross.

OUR COORDINATES

2010-02-19T16:20:00.000-08:00

In Cantamar, Mexico

Office (0152) 661-614-3163
Plant: (0152) 661-614-3262

In Carlsbad, CA USA 3402 Santa Clara Way, Carlsbad CA 92010

Office 760-742-5164
Lab : 760-442-3402

Jacques Poirier, dir. jacquesbpoirier@gmail.com
Nicole Beaudry, ass. dir. beaudrynicole@yahoo.com

Skype: jimpoir
Skype In: 760-742-5164

Luc Piché, Paris FR lucpiche@gmail.com
phone on request only

Ron Smith, Dallas TX amnowalso@sbcglobal.net
phone on request only

STAFF AND CONSULTANTS (Click on name to eMail that person)

2009-11-17T05:05:00.000-08:00

Jacques Poirier, B.Sc.-B.Arch- Industrial Designer- Architect and Director of the Institute-(English-French)
Robert Bianchi, B.A., B.Arch. (English-French-Italian)
Marcello DelRio, Arch. - Architect (English- Spanish-Portuguese)
Nicole Beaudry, M.B.A. -Public Relations- (English-French-Spanish)
Jimmy Gauthier, P.Ing. - Structural Engineer - (English-French)
Luc Piché, M.B.A. - Scs.Pol, Financial Analyst (Paris FR)-(English-French-Japanese)
Jacques Caouette, B.Sc. Industrial Designer -Technologist - (French-English)
Ruben Mendez Paz, Construction Technologist - (Spanish-English)
Eric Triesman, Attorney - (Recently passed away)
Allen Huston,Construction Technologist - (English-Spanish)
Javier Guerrero, Construction Technologist - (English-Spanish)

We are actively recruiting associate construction professionals. Please drop us a line here mentioning your related experience. Other skills in sociology, logistics, international Affairs, refugee affairs highly wished for. Weather scientists and experts to join soon.

ARCHITECTS

2009-11-16T23:25:00.000-08:00

Because of their unique position between scientists/engineers and social workers/artists, architects are sometimes the best guarantors of the successful preventive construction as well as the secure rebuilding effort after a disaster. Because they take into account human behavior and local culture, they are well equipped to anticipate the use given to their building programs. Before the Indonesian tsunami, good architects had made upper floor balconies accessible from the street, thereby saving many lives when the high waves rolled in. In some cases, these resort stairs were accepted by the resort owners only after a fight, yet they saved many lives.
More and more architects working with our Director Jacques Poirier. Most have had direct experience with construction under extreme conditions. Architect Robert Bianchi (Montréal) was involved with arctic construction, Marcello DelRio (Mexico) did the same within the tropical hurricane context. Others including Poirier himself worked with Habitat for Humanity and have had African and Asiatic experience like him.

MATHEMATICS

2009-11-15T13:28:00.000-08:00

Out of fear or malice, mathematicians have been banned from construction sites ever since one was decapitated by a Pharaoh to avoid the future duplication of a most successful pyramid. Masons and carpenters loathe mathematics, and it certainly shows: almost every building material measures either 2x4x8(studs), 8x8x16(cinder blocks), 4x8 feet(sheatings of all kinds).
One could conclude that the multiplication x2 is the only intellectuality tolerated on a building site. As a result, everything built ends up rectangular. The average house has 16,000 ninety degree angles collecting dust.
Now if any of these otherwise fine tradesmen knew by heart the square root of three , they could actually build hexagonal floor plans and stop creating wasteful corners ! More to the point, they could actually graduate to rhombic maths where super strong space saving shapes could replace fragile orthogonal structures. When not perfectly built, these can skew, warp, twist and also get buffeted by strong winds. There are no large cubic structures in nature. Having a third horizontal axis as with hexagonal grid does wonders for earthquake and wind resistance. And to think! the bees have had that figured out hundreds of millions years ago*.

Note: Sure, you can approximate an hexagon by first scribing a circle and cutting down its perimeter at six intervals. But nothing accurate can occur unless you use a little trigonometry, the Tangent of 60 degrees, or...at the very least remember 1.732051, the square root of 3, a number that represents the ratio of the side of the hexagon to its narrowest width. If you visited the rest of this site, it will become obvious to you that from now on every child should remember 1.732051, the same number of digits as your average phone number. We can do it!

HURRICANE PROOF CONSTRUCTION

2008-10-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

With over 1000 houses in several countries, some for almost 30 years, we were bound to have weathered a few hurricanes. The Caribbean beach resorts were successively exposed to Hugo, Frederic, David and a host of other hurricanes with no damage whatsoever. One occupant weathered Hugo from his living room bay window and commented humoristically: "Inside, it's quiet and still while outside, it's a raging inferno. I felt I was sitting safely inside an ambulance looking out"

On September 5, 1995, as the worst storm to ever hit Sint Maarten (Dutch Antilles), hurricane Luis had winds of 185 mph gusting to over 200 mph (~340km). This category 5 hurricane had the bad idea to just sit on Guana Bay Beach for 12 straight hours, a horrible rarity causing $2B in damage. Over 80% of houses we damaged and the island closed down to tourism for a long time. Around our 40 condos, concrete swimming pools were floated away, all plants lost all leaves and then limbs, massive concrete block houses were thrown down, concrete sidewalks and bulkwalls were exploded by the boiling sea. Yet as an upcoming video to be seen here will show, we had a $2500 damage per house average, mostly acrylics for the upstairs balcony railings and a few outside AC units torn off. Out of 400, we lost one window. This did NOT happen by chance...and I was there in person, witnessing the entire event from unit #26. For the next two weeks, I scoured the island to find out WHAT BREAKS and WHAT RESISTS during a hurricane. This is my unofficial Post Graduate Study Program. Conclusion: You need to know that you never know enough, but you also need to share what you know better with all those around you. That is the leitmotiv of the ARCHIMEDE INSTITUTE

TENTS AND WIND - A SERIOUS PROBLEM

2008-04-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

It is our most sincere desire that the million of Haitians living in tents during the upcoming storm season do not suffer the inequities of other refugess (shown in picture, Jordanian refugees after a wind storm).

FOUNDING CORPORATE SPONSORS

2007-12-17T05:04:00.000-08:00

PrintSF is a first printing resource available on the 50,000 client base Salesforce.com

It's CEO and originator is a forty years old whiz who already made a fortune by reinventing how real estate is sold in California. Mark Cira was he young executive behind the real estate software that allows for 'paperless transactions' was a hit in Southern California. Now active in another venture with similar 'paperless' goals for the corporate printing, he nevertheless took the time to become a pilot an owner, founding SkyDiego two years ago. A generous man whose altruistic streak knows no borders, Mark was instrumental in advising as well as coming up with a founding donation of $2000.

After more than ten years in the custom stair building business Stairframe Systems Inc. started steel framing staircases in 1999 with custom designed 16 gauge welded steel stringers for builders across North America.
Today, under the new management and ownership of Von Arx Tool & Die Inc, Stairframe (91245365 Québec) Inc. manufactures and distributes a small yet highly versatile inventory of modular welded steel stair stringers of predetermined riser heights, the combinations of which when mix and matching the stringers leading to and from a landing (framed by the builder) create different combinations for any floor-to floor height. 21 SKUs in all, designed to make the distributors’ and the stair builders’ job simpler and better.
The generous CEO Claude Ranger has revolutionized the modular staircase concept. His products have a definite future in some of our two-story concepts; their labor-saving and price advantage, plus the security they provide when we work with untrained crews. Since we are dedicated at providing safe earthquake resisitive 2-story houses, his concepts will fit perfectly.
This major quality tent manufacturers already serves the refugee tent market very well. As a donor for our institute he will be first to profit from our new geometrical designs, more easily clusterable tents with no guy wires to trip little kids. We intend to develop the prototypes with their research branch.

TSUTSU

2007-11-30T21:57:00.001-08:00

Most tsunamis have a 'run up' of no more than 1.5 m. Building our shelter on stilts takes care of those easily, especially if the columnar supports dont have permanent walls or other obstacles attached to them. Stairs and other light artifacts can be swept away with no strain of the building itself, although we recommend at least one self buttressing set of concrete stairs to allow beach uccupants to climb up to safety. The entire shelter is surrounded by a circular set of steel railing both to allow endangered people to hang on and climb aboard, and for protection of the building itself against floating debris. There are six entry points all around the structure to allow admission of these people, with 3 doors and 6 windows.
As with the Archimede beach resorts,
these structures are much appreciated since they do no block the views nor the access to the beach. Instead they provide shade and interesting paths to the beach itself.
Although the statistical approach is still very imperfect, the probabilities for a bigger tsunami are very real, one for instance that could generate a few run-ups of over 3 meters. In such a case, the shelter is still quite valid since the pressures expected on the shell are well handled by properties that have been known for almost thirty years. The behavior of the steel connectors and panels is entirely predictable in a symetrical arrangement of dodecahedral modules.
Also known is the fact that the 100-year tsunami could have a run-up of over 3 meters, one that would pressure the structure to the point of endangering its columns and their connection to ground or building. In such an occurence, a powerful upsurge on those connectors would allow the entire building to float up thanks to sliding cylinders inserted into a sleeve cast into the concrete columns. Since the building itself has know flotation properties we can safely calculate that a crowd of 200 people can ride up the bigger waves with the building, the latter ajusting to the surge to a height of 3.5 to 4 meters.
In the highly unlikely tsunamis that could heave the building beyond the reach if it's cylinders, The shelter would simply detach itself and float inland harmlessly, giving it a chance to pick-up more people in danger. Since the outflow of a tsunami of that size is loaded with debris, the building would need to resist these pressure. The circular 'bumper7handrail' system will help deflect these problematic floating objects.
On the other hand, since the building is truly unsinkable because of the rigid foam in its panels, a worse case scenario would involve perforation of the shell, floating out at sea and a panicking crowd that would collect all on one side, tilting the structure dramatically. This is why additional flotation is provided in the form of plastic drums set under the floor, creating a counter force to the asymetrical loading of the floor. This is also the reason why a second floor is helpful as in such a case water would harmlessly flood part of the ground floor. Nervous occupants could safely go upstairs or even on the roof, awaiting help. It is know that again in the worse case scenario the building would never be far at sea, would be essentially undamaged and could be craned to its former site after inspection of the column system. If high capacity cranes ( 2 x 25-ton+ cap. each) were not available, again the worse case scenario would involve essentially unbolting 60 panels and re-attaching them by hand over the columns, essentially tightening 60 high capacity bolts with box wrenches. Of course in a case like this all the joints would have to be re-sprayed with urethane foam, an operation costing $2000 that can be carried out in one day. It would seem that there would be a lot of grateful volunteers for a job like this, repairing 'mama' after she took care of 200 people!

ARCHIMEDE HURRICANE SHELTERS

2007-11-21T19:11:00.000-08:00

CONTACTS

2007-11-19T21:31:00.000-08:00

Membership:
To reach us, send email to Jacques at jacquesbpoirier@gmail.com

Press:
Contact Nikki at beaudrynicole@yahoo.com

Jobs applicants:
Contact Sid at: bajacq@gmail.com

Skype:

Contact Jacques through Skype: jimpoir

THE INSTITUTE'S MISSION

2007-11-18T04:29:00.000-08:00

Our mission is to use our diverse pool of experience to improve the design, the production and thus the availability of:

Cyclone shelters for hurricane prone areas.
Refugee and medical shelters for harsh environments.
Temporary housing serving vastly diverse clienteles.
Low-cost social-housing in difficult physical or social environments.
Rebuilding programs for disaster zones, flooded areas, tsunami, earthquake and hurricane victim zones. These programs include everything from low-cost social housing to high-end beach resorts.
Mobile or temporary housing units for health, security and logistic workers.
Fully equiped headquarters for NGOs and emergency management groups.
Individual housing for special needs in special contexts (More later).

Our aim is to help alleviate the worldwide shortages of these special construction projects. Our basic aim is to use all our skills and experience to make these more economical to produce while infinitely more reliable. To do all of this on a fast-track procurement , design, testing, manufacturing and delivery schedule is our ultimate goal. Ours is a non-profit organization and all of our past and future development ideas are and will be of public domain. To that end our patents will be licensed free of charge to all developing or disaster afflicted nations.

We will always choose the most expedient and economical methods for our clients to reach their goals, forming their construction professionals, training their building crews, teaching their industrialist to produce our solutions locally.
To that end, after a design is accepted, we create a few prototypes for testing purposes, but also to give the representatives of the client a chance to learn the methods hands-on, living with us for a few weeks until he feels ready to duplicate our tooling and methods in his own country.
When the budget allows, our own multi-skill and multilingual building crews will travel to the client's country to build prototypes while training local construction workers with our techniques.

Our most sincere wish is to see a tenfold increase of the number of available cyclone shelters worldwide before 2012. This is entirely possible if we do it together. As a side benefit, the technology will seep through regular construction worldwide, helping produce a 10,000-fold increase in houses that ARE protected against hurricanes (or typhoons or cylcones). This could actually reduce the number of shelters required for an enlarging population. Before 2020? That's as good a target as any, don't you agree?

Jacques B. Poirier, Director
The Archimede Institute
Cantamar MX

THE PROBLEMS WITH EXISTING REFUGEE TENTS

2007-11-18T03:44:00.000-08:00

Azerbajan Tent Villages

Pakistani Earthquake of 2005

Iraqui-Jordan Refugees
Collapsed tents, taken down by the U.N. refugee agency because of high winds and the dust storms , line an empty refugee camp on a cold, wind-swept plain near the far eastern Jordanian town of Al-Ruweishid, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Jordanian-Iraqi border Wednesday, March 26, 2003. This refugee camp is ready to receive thousands of fleeing Iraqis because of the US-led strike against Saddam Hussein 's regime, but so far, there isn't a single one. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Typical Refugee Tent Catalog

GOOGLE MAP- For A Satellite View of Some of our Projects

2007-11-17T05:02:00.000-08:00

The Canadian Arctic Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik, CA
Ski Area - The Archimede Ski Resort , Sutton CA
Hurricane Sone - Guana Bay Archimede Village, Sint Maarten NA
Deserts - A large residence in Arizona - Bisbee. AZ
Flood Areas- Rosemère QC -
Mountains - Mont Ste Anne condos - QC
City Detached and Semi-detached 2-story housing Domus System, St Jean QC
Technical buildings - I.R.E.Q. (Institut de Recherches en Electricité du Québec)

CONSTRUCTION

2007-11-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

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DESIGNING

2007-11-16T13:42:00.000-08:00

EARTHQUAKES

2007-11-16T13:39:00.001-08:00

Ground shaking lasting sometimes for just a few seconds to up to over one minute affect construction that is not capable of handling the sway induced by these lateral vibrations. Mostly rigid structures with high center of gravity are subject to huge stresses at connector areas.Masonry construction is the first victim whereas lightweight steel of wood construction with adequate connector reinforcement can handle these exceptional stresses quite well.
Archimede systems has 3 great assets for earthquakes, whether on high columns or on a ground slab:

A system of shear walls oriented in three axis vs only two, as with orthogonal construction with right angle wall intersections.
Lightweight rigid construction where stresses and strains are distributed throughout the entire envelope.
Steel or concrete columns long enough to absorb most of the horizontal sway, thus protecting the shell held above (valid for stilt construction Archimede solutions).

ETHICAL

2007-11-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

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FLOODS

2007-11-16T13:36:00.000-08:00

Quite obviously the raised Archimede houses can take on any flood. Even when the flood rises beyond the shell's lower edges, the tightness of the envelope will keep the water out. In cases where the water level is expected to rise much higher, we recommend a style of stilts developed to extend out, allowing floatation to take over. For tsunami shelters, a breakaway system allows the entire house to float away, tethered to a chain anchored to the ground. In this manner, the house is more capable of dealing with the floating debris that could impact the shelter negatively if it was fixed in one place.

GREEN

2007-11-16T13:35:00.000-08:00

HURRICANES

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INDUSTRIALISTS

2007-11-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

Pat Faley's company designs and builds drones for the US armed forces. These pilotless aircrafts are used with deadly purpose in Afghanistan, but also for surveillance over the US southern border with Mexico. This ex-fighter pilot is a brillant adviser on automation and other assembly line technologies.
Pierre Caouette, Regen Nautic founder and CEO is also an ex commercial pilot who recently developed digital technology to manage the electrical systems of 'green' yatchs and cruisers. More than a consulted friend and industrialist, Pierre is also a generous donor to the Institute. He also represents us occasionally in Florida where Regen Nautic is located.

INITIATIVES

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INNOVATIVE

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Space-Filling (tessalation) Housing Modules That Allow Expansion In several direction (Poirier- 1979)

Over 1000 houses in 12 countries built using this system

Wedge Action Panel Press (Poirier- 1980)

A-Frame double-dide press platens riding on rails and acting like 'easels' to receive facings and other sandwich panel components like doors and windows.
Fixed A-frame outer press receives the platens that are then wedged tightly into it by floor mounted hydraulics

SOLUTIONS

2007-11-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

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TECHNOLOGISTS

2007-11-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

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TESTING

2007-11-16T13:24:00.000-08:00

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TSUNAMIS

2007-11-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

Obviously it is well worth living 10-15 ft above ground when the purpose is to sleep better, knowing that

USING

2007-11-16T13:21:00.001-08:00

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A Little Background Info

2007-09-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

J. Poirier fell in love with this geometry and gave most of his adult life to it. But first, back in the early seventies, he designed 25 different snowmobiles for 3 companies . Then he designed cross-country skis in Finland and Canada, acquiring expertise in injected urethane foams and their production machinery. Later he applied this knowledge to the design of camping trailers, then motor homes, then mobile homes, all embodying rigid foam stressed skin panels. He later worked for a year on a concept of housing based on identical panels bolted together in each corner. This effort culminated in developing the machinery and building a plant called Archimede. Rhombododecahedral housing was born, made up of only two format of panels, both parallelograms of roughly 100 inches on all sides. He did have a short carreer in commercial architecture, but the simplicity of those 'space filling' shapes seemed to have gotten Poirier hypnotized till today, this time focusing on the benefits to the planet that are possible through the Archimede Institute he recently founded.

'MUCHOMAS', A HIGH-OUTPUT PANEL MAKING PRESS

2007-04-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

Will be disclosed by mid-April.

2-STORY EARTHQUAKE PROOF CONSTRUCTION

2007-04-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

In northern Mexico we are creating a super-high earthquake zone house of two stories. We expect it to withstand an over 7.2 close range earthquake with no structural damage. It will be tested in sections on the UCSD facilities's test bench. Click here for front view

CONSULTANTS and PARTNERS

2007-02-19T22:03:00.000-08:00

We are very much involved with Mission Africa Smiles, a team of Quebec doctors and medical specialists who perform facial reconstruction in West Africa. Their advice is precious forthe design of our field hospitals, our heliported operating rooms and other medically oriented buildings.
We are involved with ABC network and Dan Harris, the weekend news anchor and star reporter whose work in Haiti got much noticed. We are counting on their help to raise awareness of our services worldwide.

TSUTSU BASICS

2006-11-30T23:56:00.000-08:00

Tsutsu's functionality would command a building that would normally cost at least 3 times more than conventional commercial construction. However in this case the concept is so close to what Archimede builds since 1980 that we can safely assume its cost to be approximately 10% over that of quality local construction. This takes into account a better grade of column pads and reinforcement, telescopic connectors, flotation extras and other equipment (like...a sturdy anchor!) .
Now consider these advantages:

The concept is also a valide hurricane shelter, proven in at least one Force 5 hurricane.
In its daily incarnation, the building is a superb shell for all kinds of building programs, school, recreative center, administrative bldg., community center etc...Because the same injected foam that provides flotation along with superior tightness of the shell also allows for cheaper air conditioning. Indeed these are essentially the same as the arctic concept developed in the early 80's.
This is a cliché, of course, but life is priceless. We all had terrible heartaches to see innocent people drown and die as they were carried away along with mountains of floating debris. Those who survived had unbelievable puncture wounds from nails protruding from dislocated boards. Is it not fitting that these populations would deserve a high-tech concept that does not use nails, only a few bolts actually, in a configuration that allows distressed swimmers to climb aboard while totally protecting 200 more people.

TSUNAMI PROBABILITIES

2006-11-30T21:53:00.000-08:00

A total of 482 tsunamis have been reported in the 20th Century alone, with at least 133 having a runup greater than 1.5 meters. We know that Japan, the West Coast of South America, Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka, and the Kuril Islands are potential tsunami generating areas. We know that these are the boundaries of major tectonic plates. But what about all the other subplates of the inland seas that have produced also the big destructive tsunamis and for which we have not established seismic gaps?

Where in the Pacific Ocean can we expect the big tsunamis in the 21st Century other than the areas mentioned? Let us be more specific. There are many tsuna A total of 482 tsunamis have been reported in the 20th Century alone, with at least 133 having a runup greater than 1.5 meters. We know that Japan, the West Coast of South America, Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka, and the Kuril Islands are potential tsunami generating areas. We know that these are the boundaries of major tectonic plates. But what about all the other subplates of the inland seas that have produced also the big destructive tsunamis and for which we have not established seismic gaps?

Where in the Pacific Ocean can we expect the big tsunamis in the 21st Century other than the areas mentioned? Let us be more specific. There are many tsunamigenic regions that have shown high density of seismic energy release and where large future tsunamis can be expected. For example, one such area is a segment of the Peruvian coastal region between 8.5° S and 14° S. This is a region of extremely high seismic energy release and site of large but infrequent historical tsunamis. Other parts of the South American seismic belt are tsunami gap regions and these regions in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries produced several destructive tsunamis, destroying such towns in Chile as Arica, Antofagasta and Valparaiso. There is also a great potential for another destructive tsunami on the Pacific side of Colombia, in the vicinity of the State of Narino. The west coast of Mexico can be expected to experience larger tsunamis. Large destructive tsunamis can be expected again in the Moro Gulf in the Philippines, in the Celebes and Sulu Sea, in the Java Sea and elsewhere in the South West Pacific.

migenic regions that have shown high density of seismic energy release and where large future tsunamis can be expected. For example, one such area is a segment of the Peruvian coastal region between 8.5° S and 14° S. This is a region of extremely high seismic energy release and site of large but infrequent historical tsunamis. Other parts of the South American seismic belt are tsunami gap regions and these regions in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries produced several destructive tsunamis, destroying such towns in Chile as Arica, Antofagasta and Valparaiso. There is also a great potential for another destructive tsunami on the Pacific side of Colombia, in the vicinity of the State of Narino. The west coast of Mexico can be expected to experience larger tsunamis. Large destructive tsunamis can be expected again in the Moro Gulf in the Philippines, in the Celebes and Sulu Sea, in the Java Sea and elsewhere in the South West Pacific.

DUTCH ANTILLES - The Guana Bay Condos - Pairs of condos

2006-11-07T09:32:00.000-08:00

Again this project does not take advantage of all the possible groupings afforded by the tessalation possibilities of the rhombic dodecahedron geometry. Sutton did a much better job at this. However, the three-dimensional aspect was well integrated into the landscape and plantation, making a promedade around the resort quite enchanting. It is possible to glimpse at the sea around and under most condos, with openings between the stilts providing nice surprises to the walker.

CANADA - Mont Ste Anne QC- Ski Resorts on High Columns

2006-11-07T09:13:00.000-08:00

Another interesting grouping, but this time with more identical units than the Sutton project. This 1984 project however is one of the highest, with the living modules well up into the braches of several large maple trees, providing exquisite views of the mountains all around.

CANADA - Sutton QC- Ski Resorts on Stilts

2006-11-07T06:28:00.000-08:00

These condos built in 1983 are owned by The Club Archimede Vacation Club They are very popular, allowing 'ski-in/ski-out' access by simply skiing to your front door on the ground floor, with paths taking the shorter route UNDER other condos. The unique injected panels are sealed to each other along the edges of what are rhombododecahedral shells with incredible rigidity. The cavity under the floor is pressurized with warm air so that all floors are warm, the bathroom being the warmest of all because of the proximity of the electric furnace. An interesting design detail is that holes are drilled trough that floor into which short lengths of pipes are inserted. Over these pipes ski boots are inserted to have them warm and dried.

The lower level is where are stored skis and where the clothing is shed with cold air and snow remaining there before the skier goes upstairs to a snug and warm environment. The acoustic walls between units are built with a scientifically designed wall that only allows a few decibels to seep through, not enough to make the sounds identifiable. This great feature and the fact that the groupings on the ground naturally follow contours, flowing around large trees and forming lively clusters, the multiple views in each condos, all of it gives the entire place a vacation feeling that is well appreciated by a large return clientèle of families. In the summer, the condos are mostly fully rented, sometimes to groups like the Bar Association of Quebec.

Our Mexican Wall and Roof Paneling System

2006-11-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

The wall and ceiling/roof panels are revolutionary and quickly spreading around the world. These Styrofoam core panels have a built-in steel mesh forming triangulated trusses within and a grid on both facings, apt to receive on inch of concrete on both sides. Thus a fireproof and 'rock-solid' panel is achieve, capable of high resistance to both lateral (hurricanes) and axial loads (earthquakes). A remarkable early application of these panels is the Tijuana-San Diego project of 1990 by Habitat for Humanity and Jimmy Carter. These 100 robust social houses were built by volunteers with as only tools pliers and tying wire. They were then concrete finished by a single Gunnite applicator. They can be seen today, still rock solid and pretty almost 20 years later.
Although we mostly endorse the concrete finished wall panels, two alternates exists that we use for areas without an adequate supply of concrete or concrete finished. These are the fiberglass 'Golden" sheets and the fibercement panels.

MEXICO- Primo Tapia BC - The Paraiso Prototyping Hill

2006-11-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

Great news, bloggers, we have acquired hillside lots to allow prototyping of our newer models, testing them for human and physical interaction. This will allow confirmation of processes, costing, environmental resistance, but also as a way to confirm new ideas and try them out. Since none of these lots will be electrified for a few years, we are considering the use of a solar package in at least one of them.

Sincve we need to test our solutions in real-time, we have acquired lots where we will be building several portotype houses, each proving out a few of the newer techniques. One of these involves the Mexican polystyrene steel concrete shell technology as integrated in our own panel making ways. Some of these houses will eventually be sold when the utilities are brought in, the profits reinvested in the Institute for further development.

SINT MAARTEN - Guana Bay - Beach Condos that Successfully Weathered a Devastating Force 5 Hurricane

2006-10-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

A pleasure it was to build in the sunny islands, with grateful owners and rental users year round. The unique geometry with the near absence of right angle corners inside and out still gives pleasure to thousands of visitors as can be seen in these web sites by owners.

VIETNAM - Nha Trang Projected Beach Retirement Community

2006-10-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

Retirement clusters spread on a grand set of dunes by a lovely beach. On top, north American clusters where each owner is fully isolated from his neighbors in spite of the fact that they share a common plumbing and utilities core connection. Very economical, they provide privacy and comfort without wasting land use and grounds utilities.

In that project, the same basic arrangement is treated in the local idiom by simply changing the roof for synthetic grass over a membrane, also using local craftmen to decorate the panels prior to their erection. These are confined on a small island in the project were artists are invited to stay to create a restful haven for tourists and retirees, having flute players and teachers of Tai Chi and martial arts do demonstrations.

USA - Los Alamos NM- Ski Lodge From Our Oversized Panels

2006-10-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

The Los Alamos Ski Club gave us a chance to try out a simple 3 story steel structure of our design and completely enclosed, roof and wall, with panels injected in our large presses. This plant of ours in Los Alamos innovate in several areas of machinery, methods and product. In the commercial construction field, steel shells are very suitable and popular. This building is still used very effectively 20 years later and its cost was an amazing $17 per ft2

Remarquably, this structure does not need any heating after 9AM in ski season. The body heat of skiers and cooking kitchen with the sun showing up through the large plate glass is more than enough to keep the shell toasty inside till late in the afternoon. R36 wall and roof panels along with supertight joint guarantee that result, along with properly oriented windows.

None of this is really surprising if one studies this text concerning steel clad urethane panels used since the late 40's. Their longevity and sustainability is simply amazing.

The Vietnam Beach Resort Project Near Nha Trang

2006-10-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

Living High

2006-10-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

International Housing Industry Involvement -1972-2000

2006-10-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

THE 'CONNECTORS' PROBLEM

2006-10-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

Stick-built housing uses too many tiny connectors like nails, staples and small screws. Too many to easily inspect as too many miss their mark (this was shown in the forensic studies after Andrews stormed Homestead FL).

The New Mexico Technical Developments

2006-10-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

The Los Alamos factory was built to develop three new technologies relating to foam injected paneling systems and other aspect of the Archimede construction techniques. All achieved complete proof of our starting hypothesis:

Extra-large panels from a new 'crossover platen press' ,
Built-in metal cladding system with concealed edges and hidden connectors,
Passive solar for commercial structures
Steel structural frames requiring little or no post-finishing.

One of the original partner in these ventures is Eric Treisman, a Santa Fe attorney still very active with the Institute. His long-standing involvement with North American native tribes and with Tibet has been a source of enlightment for all of us.

THE 'HEART-LUNG'MODULE

2006-06-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

Photo above shows three 'wet modules' being built at Louisiana plant. These bathrooms are fully tested before being loaded in a container. Their corner posts projecting downward allow plumbers and electricians to go under if needed. These 'high heels' are simply cut-off with a chainsaw before loading. Containing the service entrance panel and the back 'wet' wall to the kitchen, those compact modules are the coe of all Archimede houses, removing at leat 50% of all technical tasks at the building site, speeding up assembly immensely. Below, a 120 m2 (1300 ft2) 2-story house that can be built for well below $50,000. A few of these were erected in Venezuela in 1994.

At the right, the 'San Isidro' version of the house above as being completed in Isla Margarita VE. Note that three or more houses could be shipped into 2 40-ft containers and that erection time of these prior to stucco finish is only a matter of a few days, thanks in part to the fact that the more technically complex wet module carries most of the wiring and piping. This is why we at the Institute call this concept by Poirier the 'heart-lung' module of any house we fabricated.
It must be said however that the fact that all of these pressure-injected foam core panels are already prepared at the plant with doors and windows, also with notching for roof beams and other task requiring precision. Making these in a weather controlled plant having positioning fixtures or 'jig' is the way to go!

Wall And Roof Treatment Variations

2006-05-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

TSUNAMI 'FLOATING SOLUTION'

2006-04-07T12:37:00.000-07:00

Although this house was designed for a flooding site, it could handle most tsunamis with its rigidity and steel clad paneled underbelly at a high stance. For the much less probable tsunamis that could rise above the door sills and create massive amounts of floating debris, we suggest soluble bolt anchors on top of each column. This way the house will float as a rigid unit capable of taking a lot of hits and yet remain safe. Of course a solid chain would tether it to a reliable point on the ground. This is not a compromise as both safety and practicality are maintained in a relatively low-cost house.

WHO COMES HERE - OUR TRAINING SEMINARS

2006-04-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

We have a one-on-one training program for civil employees wanting to upgrade their palette of choices in the rebuilding arena. These two week seminars are held in Cantamar MX, and cost includes lodging in a beach condo as well as transit to and from the San Diego Airport. The cost of a complete session in $1000., including the documentation that is transferred from computer to computer. Trainees are invited to bring portable drives with at least 300 gigs of free space. Diplomas are given and most governments recognize our institution for tax purposes applied to professional training and career upgrading.

2013-2020

2005-12-22T04:34:00.000-08:00

By the end of 2012, the Institute will be well known to the faculty of most Architectural Schools throughout the world. It would conceivably by then be very easy to recruit students for summer stages at our different facilities. By gaining insight in our methods as a trade-off for their help, those students will vastly enrich and help spread the Archimede gospel for stronger building shells. Seeding the entire profession at this early date in their career, many of these students will chose to forego conventional practice later on and devote their energies to promoting the thousands of needed shelters before the end of the 2010 decade.
On the same schedule, our affiliate offices would recruit local contractors willing to invest a month of their time to learn the Archimede ways. By 2012, we hope to have had the time and energy to clone our head office in several other locations closer to frequent disaster afflicted areas.

2010-2020

2005-12-22T03:39:00.000-08:00

These are the eight years where the hurricane shelter project will really be implemented worlwide. After a promotional campaign in 2008, we expect to be training crews in Mexico to manufacture the components to produce and erect these in the affected zones of their country. These people sent to us by their government or NGOs will live with us in Cantamar for the time it takes for them to fully integrate our techniques.

2008-2010

2005-12-18T04:44:00.000-08:00

We intend to use the rest of 2007 to raise money and to get in touch with the rebuilding authorities in several areas, namely in Bangladesh, Peru, and Haiti, recent victims of natural disasters. We are completing several design programs:

A cyclone shelter for 500 people at below $60K. one that can be completed in 1 month by a semi-skilled crew.
A red cross first aid station that can resist cyclones and tsunamis.
A tsunami-proof kit house at below $30K, unfinished.
An aseptic heli-portable surgical module that is autonomous and air conditioned.
A container based portable factory capable of producing 100 panels a day for shelters above.
Our new institute training program for manufacturing.

2008 will be the year when we complete our inernational network of affiliates. Tentatively, we aim to have a presence in Dakra BD---Singapore MY---Ho Chi Minh City VN---Beijing CN---Tokyo JP--- Honolulu US---San Diego* US---Cantamar**MX---Dallas*US---Miami* US---Philipsburgh* N.A.---Caracas VE---New York US---Montréal* CA---Paris* FR---Geneva CH---Moscow RU---Rome IT--- Abijan CI--- Istambul TR---Yerevan* AM---Teheran IR
(* single asterisk indicate existing links that we are developing-** Our home office)

2007

2005-11-22T03:22:00.000-08:00

Our Cantamar MX office and research facility (on the right in aerial view ) has in 2007 launched the Institute as we know it, graduating from 35 years of design and manufacturing into a non-profit society. Its aim is to implement sturdier and more economical construction techniques for the benefit of populations afflicted by natural disasters on a regular basis. The long rectangle shows our shop, part of which is periodically transformed into a wind tunnel for testing refugee tents. That part has an earth floor simulating average soils where such tents are often erected. We have found in 2007 some clever solutions to the wind problems that can be seen here.

POPULAR SCIENCE ARCTICLE

2005-11-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

STILT HOUSE

2005-11-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

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DISASTERS

2005-11-16T13:41:00.000-08:00

Earthquakes and Earthquake proofing
Floods
Hurricanes and Hurricane proofing
Tsunamis and Tsunami resistance and protection
Wildfires
Landslides
Termites and Insect proofing
Permafrost damage and
Climate changes
Wind storms

OUR FIRST 'OPERA'

2005-11-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a generous fund provided by Private Capital Inc. and it's owner, Ronald Smith (left on photo), the Archimede Institute has fully tested a series of small buildings that can be erected in a few hours. The one shown here is an aseptic field operating room that is air conditioned and can be hosed down clean inside and out. The heaviest component weighing in at 30 kilos, two nurses could theoretically put one up on their lunch break, to use a little Cajun exageration. The entire package can be air freighted in a small crate that fits in any air cargo hold.
Note: Photo taken on a hot day after a few Cajun beers. ;-) I'm the sober one on the right.
Jacques

The Rhombic Dodecahedral Geometry

2005-11-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

(text from Wikipedia) The rhombic dodecahedra honeycomb is a space-filling tessellation (or honeycomb) in Euclidean 3-space. It is the Voronoi diagram of the face-centered cubic sphere-packing, which is believed to be the densest possible packing of equal spheres in ordinary space (see Kepler conjecture).

It consists of copies of a single cell, the rhombic dodecahedron. All faces are rhombs, with diagonals in the ratio 1:√2. Three cells meet at each edge. The honeycomb is thus cell-transitive, face-transitive and edge-transitive; but it is not vertex-transitive, as it has two kinds of vertex. The vertices with the obtuse rhombic face angles have 4 cells. The vertices with the acute rhombic face angles have 6 cells.

The rhombic dodecahedron can be twisted on one of its hexagonal cross-sections to form a trapezo-rhombic dodecahedron, which is the cell of a somewhat similar tessellation, the Voronoi diagram of hexagonal close-packing.

In plain English: If you took a can of peas, drained it and packed some of the peas tightly between your two cupped hands, you would obtain:

a bunch of peas each with twelve identical flat faces, parallellogram shaped
no void between each peas until you separate them
very messy hands.
The resulting shape is the strongest thing next to a sphere
It is arguably the strongest object you can create using flat surfaces

Hundred of houses built this way have been trhough terrible hurricanes and earthquakes,

SOLID GEOMETRICAL CHOICES FOR STRENGTH

2005-11-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

This acrylic scale model built in 1979 was the inspiration for a 30 year effort in building stronger better prefabricated homes. The configuration variety provided by these identical panels, their angles of intersection providing 3 axis of resistance to lateral forces instead of 2, the multiple orientations of the views provided gave Poirier a rush he could not resist to build them for all these years. Since 1979, a few changes were brought about, the actual rhombic dodecahedron was actually squashed vertically, then some roofs were transformed into 6-side pyramids, but the essential merit of the shape remained intact as the panels and the shells were proven to be equal or more resistive than planned.
This merit is firstly the unusually high resistance to side loads. This diagram makes it easy to understand what makes this possible. Whatever the direction

THE ARCHIMEDE STORY, UPDATED

2005-11-04T01:41:00.000-08:00

This 15-minute video was put together by the Institute to give a hint as to what the Archimede Solutions can look like. The first half brushes a wide historical perspective while the last half introduces the newer techniques adopted in our latest synthesis in Mexico. The reinforced concrete approach is being fully industrialized so as to both simplify and speed up the erection process. Along with our modular pods containing finished bathroom and electrical walls, we are thus providing true prefabrication having these 5 characteristics:

No other prefabricated system meets any more than 2 of of these 5, this at any price. We rightly describe ourselves as offering fully permanent housing and shelter from container-shipped components and local concrete.

NOTE:
We cannot show plant equipment, assembly methods, service core module, and finished components because these are currently part of the patent process, requiring that none of our ideas be published prior to full patent application. Associates and affiliated groups will be able to access these pages.

Cantamar Location Of The Institute

2005-10-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

We are located less than 50 miles south of the US border in San Diego, having access to 2 container terminals within one hour (Ensenada MX and San Diego CA). We have what is hailed as the best weather year-round in North America. We have a pool of good laborers and we consistently form long-lasting skills with our employees and associates. Our shop is situated next to the toll highway and 400 feet from our office situated on the other side, by the sea. We are building right now an extension to house our material laboratory and eventually our design office and classroom for 12. Our training program are already being promoted to foreign clients and we expect to start training specialized crews this coming winter. Meanwhile our offices are in one part of my private residence and that is working fine for now.

Good results can only be had when the social and physical environments for work are good. We are proud to say that our Cantamar location provides the best possible scenario for the
development of ideas that fit the client's need perfectly. Our proximity to the USA gives quick access to specialists, some materials, high-tech tools and instruments when needed, and quick access to what are reputed to be the best airport in each country. In addition, the friendly atmosphere created by our Mexican co-workers in ideal to help shape the qualities that we expect to develop in our students of construction, of plant management or work site supervision. We are totally happy at the Institute and we will love sharing that creative joy with you. JBP. Dir.

2004-2007

2005-06-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

This was our 'Project For A New Millennium' , a revamped Archimede that looses some of its purity for still greater flexibility . By creating different roofing and base panel arrangements, we could now achieve greater speed and convenience of assembly, thanks in part to three great subsystems. The house below is one of the few 'individual house' we will build for promotional purposes, selling it later to help finance our caritative operations.

While we are still at the patent application stage, we need to abstain from posting relevant pictures. But for our affiliates and collaborators we will put together a presentation that is visible in these pages with an access code. The Institute will grant free use of all its patents to deserving or needy geographic locations. We train select personnel from these at our Mexico facilities, teaching product and process techniques directly, using the methods and machinery that we create for them. Also we are about to 'cast' prototypes on purchased land situated near our plant. We intend to complete these 'demos' this year, some of which are visible here on the Paraiso web site These lands will not be serviced by electricity for another year or two and we are tempted to use a solar package with wind turbine and panels on at least one of them. They are intended for human and physical testing and will provide support for our international action.

Patent law is strict on one point, the fact that one cannot apply for a patent on a principle or technique that was already published, thus in the public domain. While our lawyers are not certain if a 'private blog' constitutes 'publication', we are taking no chances due to the immense cost of these patents.

1995-2004

2005-06-25T22:19:00.000-07:00

This period was crucial for the foundation of the Institute because of our director Poirier's venture into the world of conventional architecture, designing and building everything from corporate headquarters to gasoline stations. After having spent nearly 20 years in the industrial sector, he felt the need to reconnect with conventional construction and new building techniques, their documentation and execution. He joined the Royal Institute of Architects of Canada, taught briefly at the University of Montreal and renewed his Canadian architectural license. Research was never very far as Poirier managed to innovate in several fields during that period. Writing a complete 3D software package from scratch still used by its client , a stairs manufacturer, the director of the Institute now has brought us an incredible logistics and design set of tools that can guarantee the smooth execution of our development and growth program. N.B.

1985-1995

2005-06-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

In 1985, Poirier sold the Canadian Patent to his partner and immigrated to the US where he set up plants, first in New Mexico, then in Florida and Louisiana . He pushed research in several directions, adpating to desertic, then tropical and then cyclonic environments.
Soon it became know by developers of resorts that the Archimede houses could take it on the chin, having successfully gone through several big one unscathed. In 1995, Poirier was himself in one ot these condos when Luis hit the island of Sint Maarten with unusual ferocity. Again no damage to the 40 condos in Guana Bay Beach where winds were clocked at 285 mph (+400 km/he). In his own words, Poirier got 'a postgraduate degree in hurricane resistance' just by spending the next two weeks scouting the island to analyse breakage of materials in a force 5 hurricane. This one had sat on the island for 12 hours, destroying to an amazing degree. After 15 days, planes could land and our director went into a more conventional architectural practice and to the University of Montreal as an invited teacher of architecture and part-time researcher. But the 'manufacturing bug' bit again in 1997!

1980-1985

2005-06-05T05:06:00.000-07:00

1980 is the year when Jacques Poirier, our founding derector at the Institute and Placide Poulin, a successful businessman got together to set up Archimede Systems Inc. This new housing manufacturer set in Eastern Quebec got its start in an incredibly bad financial crisis (interest rates at around 20%!) yet quickly sold hundreds of revolutionary houses in several countries. Based on the rhombic dodecahedral geometry as shown in our top of the page spinner, these shells were incredibly sturdy*. Poirier designed the machinery and modified an injection process he had earlier learned in the RV and in the ski business. Canadian and US Patents were granted in 84, at which time Poirier chose to pursue the development of these ideas in the US, seling his Canadian Patent to his partner(s).

1974-1980

2005-06-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

In the later half on the seventies, Poirier's familiarity with production systems brought him to the booming RV business. Starting with tent trailers, he graduated to camping trailers and then motor homes. Finally, a revolutionnary mobile home building technique was developed by a team led by him as chief designer with Bellevue Industries. These ho,es were made up of only 4 wall panels, one roof panel and one floor panel, forming a box that was both rigid and insulated. The world's largest press was built 25m x 5m x 5m deep, a giant concrete and steel 'toaster' capable of 9 million pounds of pressure, enough to contain these giant panels while they were being injected with polyurethane foam. This box construction allowed for maritime shipping without deconsolidation of the structure. Export to 3 continents of prefab homes, double and triple wide, was the next step. Algeria, Crete, France, and several other countries have received those house. Poirier's foray into a field that quickly became his own was the first of a large export effort from Canada. The Institute ows a lot to those intense five years that in the end gave birth to the Archimede concept. Poirier was rewarded by his peers as the architect who did the most for the housing export trade.

PANEL PRESSES: 1991, FOURTH GENERATION

2005-04-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

INJECTION MACHINERY- 1990, FIFTH GENERATION

2005-04-07T14:09:00.000-07:00

Ron Smith and myself put together this $20,000. press, one that is easily transportable and reassembled anywhere, sometimes under different formats. Capable of batch injecting up to thirty thinner panels or ten extra thick panels, it has it's own loading and unloading setup in the form of an overhead moveable beam and electric hoist. This feature makes it practical to remove the different size press platen between jobs. This press has the greatest potential for third-world reconstruction applications projects.

1969-1974

2005-04-04T16:48:00.000-07:00

The Quebec of the early seventies provided our director with the chance to develop as an industrial designer, his first love. The snowmobiling boom quickly made him chief designer with a snowmobile manufacturer. At age 30, Poirier already signed the design of over $2 billion's worth of sold production . This included cross-country skis and several other products including RV's , motor homes and mobile homes.
To this day, Jacques swears by that initial jolting job in the industrial field; how else could he have acquired 'in-the-field' notions of resistance of materials, after-sales service, environmental problems, production machinery design and the like. Nothing like a good little war to form a great general later on.
Also, this is where he met another highly successful business man by the name of Placide Poulin. The latter was the original partner in the Archimede factory set up in 1980. After taking the MAAX corporation to a billion dollar conglomerate, he is now retired and chairman of the board of Camada, a venture capital group led by his brilliant daughter Marie-France. It was only fitting that this group is also the biggest sponsor of the Institute.

CANADA- Boucherville QC - Archimede Condo Groupings - Garden Style

2005-02-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

In this 40 condo project near Montreal, 2 story condos (1600 ft2 + basement) are grouped three together back to back, forming large hexagons that are then grouped together2 or three at a time. The result is an advantageous set of clusters that give each owner an opening on a landscaped area without the view of his immediate neighbors. And the superior soundproofing and spatial qualities inside make these condos especially attractive for a medium density area that can benefit from landscaped paths and a geometry that for once is not orthogonal like Versailles gardens, but more like an English garden with much less compositional rigidity.

Custumized Groupings Fitted To Tradition And Local Taste

2004-10-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

THE PERFECT DEMOLITION SYSTEM

2004-04-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

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'

2004-04-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

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

2004-04-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

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

2004-04-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

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

2004-04-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

ECONOMICAL

2003-11-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

As most of you have noted by now, the secret of our economical shelters resides in the repeatability provided to us by the geometries we use. In the RD's (rhombic dodecahedrons), all panels are parallelograms of the same size ( actually we use 2 sizes in our 'squashed' RD, one size for the walls and one size for both the roof and the underside panels). This allows for simple assembly jigs, a uniform press to inject all of these with urethane foam, uniform carrying carts, simplified loading of containers etc....
Moreover, since parallellograms can be made from rectangular building materials with no waste ( see this blog ), there is an added economy not present from regular construction where upwards of 20% of materials can end up in municipal dumps.
The other economies also derive from economy of scale. When hundreds of shelters are built using only a few identical parts, much less time is wasted in certification, inspection, training etc...Anf of course purchasing power is augmented to a great degree.

LIVING HIGH...SAFE AND DRY

2002-12-13T22:19:00.000-08:00

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'.

FLOOD-PRONE AREA CONSTRUCTION SOLUTIONS

2001-12-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

This house belongs to the Ferrari dealership owner in Montreal, a man who needed a secure garage under his house, one where he could wash off the road salts from under his prized set of wheels. In addition, the lot is setting next to the notorious Riviere-des-prairies, a picturesque and highly flood-prone area near Montreal. By building 'high and dry', this proud owner feels safe and snug during the occasional major flood when all his neighbors need to pile their belongings on top of their fridges and counters. But he does leave the Ferrari at the dealership when that happens. He also stores a motorized boat under the same house.
Archimede sold quite a few houses near rivers that flood occasionally. Several of them did weather severe floods and many townships now give building permits only to housing that have this capacity to resist the floods. Although Canada is not subject to hurricanes, it needs to be said that this same house needs very little else to be classified as hurricane proof: laminated glass and a stronger railing and stairs design.

PLACIDE POULIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ARCHIMEDE SYSTEMS

2001-12-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

Placide was a fiberglass part supplier for the housing industry and the snowmobile manufacturers where Poirier was active in the early seventies. This is how they met and learned to trust each other. In 1980, they formed Archimede Systems to develop a patent that Poirier had concocted after a stint in the RV and modular housing industry. A brilliant strategist and marketer, Placide was responsible for the explosive growth of the Archimede sales. After five year and the need to develop the American market, Poirier and Poulin went their separate ways with the former creating the MAAX group of companies integrating Archimede with Acrylica and Modern Fiberglass and Metal, the original company that made bathtubs and snowmobile parts (These are the first three letters of the MAAX acronym) . He headed MAAX for fifteen years, growing it from a revenue of $10M to a $1B company recently sold at his retirement. Now a prosperous and solid golfer, Placide nevertheless sits on the board of directors of CAMADA, one of our corporate sponsors, a Venture Capital group company handled with flair by his eldest daughter Marie-France. The latter was also a very effective Archimede employee during her university holidays.

A DESERT JEWEL

2001-12-14T12:02:00.000-08:00

Once an Eastern Airline captain from Sierra Vista AZ flew over the Guana Bay Beach resort in Sint Maarten. He was intrigued by the shape of the housing he saw (to see exactly what he saw, check out this aerial view of Guana Bay Archimede Village, Sint Maarten NA). When he took a taxi and visited the project, he knew at once that this was IT. He needed a house that could remain unattended for weeks during his long flying blocks yet remain stable and theft proof. What better way than to buy one for his site high enough so that a potential burglar would be seen carrying a 21 ft ladder from the highway to access his balconies( where he kept expensive furniture and from which they could crack open the patio doors. ) The lower entry had but one door protected with 1/4 inch steel and a loud alarm system. He was never robbed and the house did not even need AC. From his own lips: "This house is so highly insulated that all I have to do in the hottest summer spell is to keep windows closed till 2PM. At that time the breezes kick in and I can open them to change the air...still very cool inside because of our cool nights'. Smart airline captain. Which is more that could be said of our 'French only' erection crew from Canada: Looking for a flight to this remote south Arizona location, they peeked at a globe and chose the Montreal-Dallas-El Paso flight, one that had them travel 400 miles by car. They had never heard of Tucson but remembered the Marty Robbins hit tune from the sixties!

SOME OF THE ARCHIMEDE PIONNEERS

2001-12-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

Shown in this 1985 Quebec sugarhouse party, are seen in the photo from left to right:

Eric Triesman, Stanford Graduate from Santa Fe NM, assisted in getting the US operations off the ground. Now a consultant member of the Institute.
Placide Poulin, original partner from Beauce, Québec, now the retired and very successful industrialist that headed of the MAAX group of companies. a member of the board of Camada Group.
Jacques Bernard Poirier, architect and founding president of Archimede Systems in 1981. Poirier is the actual director of the Institute.
Don Arrowsmith, of South Florida, is the ex-Navy pilot who built a marketing program for Archimede International. He is now retired and a member of our advisory board.

ELEVATED WITH A PURPOSE

2001-12-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

Shown at trade shows where sometimes there is only one day to put it up, the basic Archimede houses attracted crowds of up to 75,000 people in one weekend thorughout the early 80's. No one appeared to be surprised when it was hailed as 'Tomorrow's House', even though the actual purposes of sitting it high were:

To profit from small lots by parking the auto below it
To better resist floods and earthquakes
to create a higher space that would leave cold air below, along with boots, skis and snow covered clothing.
for the added security from robbery where only one door needs to be protected
And basically to profit from the views and the breezes afforded by elevated living.

It needs to be said that the speed of assembly reflects the speed of fabrication. Uniform repeatable parts allowed Archimede houses to be fully made 'from scratch'; all windows where of the same design and sizes, all were fixed with an insulated panel below for ventilation. And of course all panels were of the same size as explained elsewhere in this site.

BUILDING ON DIFFICULT TERRAIN

2001-12-14T11:04:00.000-08:00

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.