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
ARCHIMEDE INSTITUTE
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.
ECONOMICAL
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.
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
FLOOD-PRONE AREA CONSTRUCTION SOLUTIONS
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
A DESERT JEWEL
SOME OF THE ARCHIMEDE PIONNEERS
- 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
- 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.
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