Monthly Archives: February 2010

The Primitive Hut

The primitive hut has been a standard architectural concept since at least the time of Vitruvius (a Roman writer and architect who died circa 15 BC). As a concept it came to prominence in the eighteenth century when Laugier used an image of it on the frontis piece of the second edition of his Essay [...]
Posted in Design | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Sourcing Materials

When sourcing materials my design will seek to utilise renewable and / or local materials as far as possible. This gives me a check-list that will help in the selection of materials. Materials that answer the earliest questions on the list should be selected – subject to as ever costs. Is there a renewable or [...]
Posted in Design | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Dogtrot house

A dogtrot house is a small house design that originated and developed in the southern United States. Its basic form is two rooms or sets of rooms separated by a covered porch. This provides two distinct areas for domestic purposes – for example, living in one end and sleeping in the other. The covered porch [...]
Posted in Design | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Design Inspiration ~ My ‘straw-man’ shed design #1

I thought that the best way to start on a detailed design (or at least to make a start on what I’d expect to be one of many) was to come up with a title for the shed, after some thought (not much) this seemed like a good one: Zero carbon renewable shed. What’s that…? [...]
Posted in Design | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The opposite of inspiration #1

As I can’t find a suitable word of the antonym of inspiration (disincentive seems to be the accepted opposite but doesn’t really do it in this context) I’ll stick with the opposite of inspiration for the title of this post. [Edit: April 2011 - having given this some more thought, I don't think there is [...]
Posted in Design | Tagged | Leave a comment