ARCHIMEDE INSTITUTE


'ARCTA' - THE PERFECT ARCTIC SHELTER

Design with the help of Dr. Richard Chill, the late famous Canadian arctic construction specialist, these Arctic houses have been used by the Inuit nation for offices, residence and in one case, a caribou meat freezer-room! Selling a Frigidaire to Eskimos is not a lame joke anymore!

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. Interconnected, these cavities form a plenum that is pressurized with warm air diffusing through the floor registers, but also through tiny holes placed near the outside wall to prevent condensation forming where air does not circulate well.  All Archimede houses have a fabulous shell to keep the occupants warm, sometimes associated with quadruple glazed windows that never show frost build-ups. But the sub-floor cavity in ALL OF THEM is a warm air distribution plenum (see article in Popular Science magazine) , a feature that is equally appreciated in our many ski resorts condos where simple plastic tubes are fitted into holes through the flooring, forming a natural dying setup for wet ski boots inverted over them. Much appreciated is the fact that the area under and around the house is mostly clear of snow buildups since the low drag underside accelerates the weakest winds. As for the super-resistance of these panelized shape of these modular structure, read this recent article by the inventor himself. The later can be reached at his email address

'TOWO', A SMALL EARTHQUAKE AND HURRICANE RESISTANT TOWER


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

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


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.

CLIENTS

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

  • 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

Skype: jimpoir
Skype In: 760-742-5164

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

  • Jim 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

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

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

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 wind
s 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

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).