Inga's House/DesignSpecifications

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Version 1.1

Ingas Design Specifications: A small house in a natural setting using local natural products as much as possible

I would like to use local bricks that we produce on site also for the floor (if at all possible)

After getting excellent suggestions from Dustin Tusnovics (our leader of the architects for my house) and DI Dittmar Hecken of the University, Kassel in Germany (who will be one of my instructors at next week's workshop, where I will learn to build walls, vaults and domes from earth bricks!), I have changed my design specifications:

The house should have about 45-50 m² and should have a vault!

All other items remain as in the previous version

II. Global Village @ Factor E Farm

The house will be the first in the future [blog.opensourceecology.org/?p=632 Solar Village]. And hopefully all houses that follow will be built with the same or a similar philosophy. So the first house will serve as a showcase of other houses in the village to come. It's important that people understand that we are not building primitive houses but naturally beautiful, warm homes.

For waste water I would like to have a Bio-Filter. The waste water in the bio-filter should be extended to build a pond for fish and for swimming. I found a company in Herford, Germany that produces this type of system (not Open Source, yet). This is a "three chamber system": the settling pond, the regeneration pond, and the swimming pond. Not being an expert, I don't know if it can handle blackwater.

For heating, cooking, warm water etc. I would like to have solar energy (collectors for heating, warm water) as much as possible, otherwise take electricity from the solar concentrator near the greenhouse (assuming it will be there).

Version 1.0

Ingas Design Specifications: A small house in a natural setting using local natural products

I would like to use local bricks that we produce on site as much as possible, including for the floor. On the floor we probably need special finish on the bricks. And if at all possible I would like the roof to be a dome. Nice to have would be a round window on top of the dome (but that may be technically challenging).

The house should be 45-50 m² ( 7 by 7 meters would be ideal) and I like rectangular shape: a cube with a dome! I would like to have a large window facing south or southwest. And that part of the house should be extended with a glassed-in porch (Wintergarten) for growing herbs and flowers in winter and for supplying passive solar heating. I would like the house to be on a gentle slope because of drainage from rain. It should have a small bathroom and a small kitchen.

The outside of the house can't be left raw bricks, so they have to get some kind of finish (in German: Rauhputz). The dome has to be rain tight and smooth, so no drops should be able to collect on it. The window-frames should be wooden (unless they manage to make them from bio-plastics).

Rainwater should be collected from the dome. The roof gutter to collect the water could look like a collar around the "neck" of the dome.

Details of water storage depend on local conditions like precipitation etc. but a storage area could be envisioned underneath the porch.

Around the house I would like to have a small vegetable and flower garden.

All building material and the plans have to be Open Source under a license so that anybody can replicate the house (and we can later repair it)

II. Global Village @ Factor E Farm

The house will be the first in the future [blog.opensourceecology.org/?p=632 Solar Village]. And hopefully all houses that follow will be built with the same or a similar philosophy. So the first house will serve as a showcase of other houses in the village to come. It's important that people understand that we are not building primitive houses but naturally beautiful, warm homes.

For waste water I would like to have a Bio-Filter. The waste water in the bio-filter should be extended to build a pond for fish and for swimming. I found a company in Herford, Germany that produces this type of system (not Open Source, yet). This is a "three chamber system": the settling pond, the regeneration pond, and the swimming pond. Not being an expert, I don't know if it can handle blackwater.

For heating, cooking, warm water etc. I would like to have solar energy (collectors for heating, warm water) as much as possible, otherwise take electricity from the solar concentrator near the greenhouse (assuming it will be there).