Friday 16 October 2009

Thinking about joining the living structure to other things

The strength and coherence of any structure is a result of the attachment of different materials and elements by appropriate methods.

In constructing a living building, there are several areas where attachment is not the same as in any other building. These are:

  • The trunks/stems entering the soil
  • The joining of trunks together - the same method is variously called "pleaching", "approach grafting" and "pressure grafting".
  • The support of a waterproof surface over the whole (i.e. roof!)
  • The integration of fixed size components into the living structure - e.g windows, steel shape enforcement
  • The use of supports to either temporarily or permanently take some of the load to the ground through the living structure.

I'll put up a post for each one.

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