STRANGE STRUCTURES.From treehouses to underground caverns, people call a wild mix of places home. Imagine climbing a winding staircase up a tree trunk to reach your front door. Or swinging down a ladder to get to your underground home carved in rock. Since the days of cave people CAVE People (an initialism for Citizens Against Virtually Everything) is a pejorative acronym for citizen activists who regularly oppose any changes within a community. , necessity and creativity have driven humans to concoct con·coct tr.v. con·coct·ed, con·coct·ing, con·cocts 1. To prepare by mixing ingredients, as in cooking. 2. some pretty weird shelters--from leaf huts to igloos (ice houses), from deerskin deer·skin n. 1. Leather made from the hide of a deer. 2. A garment made from deerskin. Noun 1. deerskin - leather from the hide of a deer lean-tos to mud-and-dung homes. But then like other animals, people need to protect themselves from wild predators and harsh weather, to store food, sleep, and just hang out. Take the treehouse at left, for example. For thousands of years, humans in forests from New Guinea New Guinea (gĭn`ē), island, c.342,000 sq mi (885,780 sq km), SW Pacific, N of Australia; the world's second largest island after Greenland. to California--not to mention Tarzan in Africa--have built treehouses to keep them high and dry. "Wood makes a great material to build sturdy homes," says engineer Alan Wong Alan Wong is a chef and restaurateur known as the cofounder (along with Sam Choy) of Hawaii Regional Cuisine in 1992. Wong and Choy are alumni of the Kapiolani Community College Culinary Arts program. Wong has several restaurants in Hawaii, as well as one in Japan. of Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 128,284. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) south of downtown Washington, DC. . That's because wood consists of layers of dense fibers, which make it tough, durable, and resistant to extreme heat or moisture. A tree trunk makes a strong foundation (base) for a house: roots spread like fingers beneath the ground to grab soil and rocks; a trunk of interlocking interlocking /in·ter·lock·ing/ (-lok´ing) closely joined, as by hooks or dovetails; locking into one another. interlocking Obstetrics A rare complication of vaginal delivery of twins; the 1st strands of wood proves a firm column that can sway without toppling over, as well as bear enormous weight on top. Early humans probably used strips of animal skin or plant fibers to hold logs in place. When people invented metal nails, fastening strips of wood together became a cinch cinch a saddle girth on an American stock saddle. Tightens with a knot on a ring instead of with straps and buckles. . Trees may make great building blocks, but their supply is dramatically dwindling dwin·dle v. dwin·dled, dwin·dling, dwin·dles v.intr. To become gradually less until little remains. v.tr. To cause to dwindle. See Synonyms at decrease. : World forests have shrunk by 22 million acres per year since 1995, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. At this rate, could wood homes soon go extinct? EARTHSHIP Concern for a threatened environment has spurred one company called Earthship Biotecture in Taos, N.M., to promote the design of an all-natural house anyone can assemble from tires, dirt, and cement (powdered mixture of limestone and clay). How do you build an Earthship? First, bury tires to make a foundation. Tires are moisture-proof, but tires alone aren't strong enough to support the weight of a dirt house, Wong explains. Packing tires with wet dirt makes the difference: Tires act as a mold, but when filled with wet earth, the dirt forms a concrete-like substance inside the tire. "Dirt is nature's cement," Wong says. It contains clay and other natural binders, like decaying animals and rotting wood, for example. As natural substances decay in soil, they combine with oxygen in air and natural soil moisture to make dirt brick hard. To put up Earthship walls, stack tires and pack dirt in and around them (on page 19, can you see the lumps from fires below?). To solidify the walls, pound the dirt with a sledgehanuner--a process called compaction. Finally, coat the walls with a layer of cement to keep rain and moisture from seeping in and turning the house into a mud heap. How does the house get its power? Solar panels on the roof transform sunlight into heat and electricity, to nm lights, the fridge, and TV. Rainwater runs off the roof into jugs made out of old fires, and a pump shoots water through a filter that cleans it, then through pipes to the house's faucets. To find out more, check out: www.earthship.org BUILDING BLOCKS Depending on where people live--whether the Arctic Circle Arctic Circle, imaginary circle on the surface of the earth at 66 1-2°N latitude, i.e., 23 1-2° south of the North Pole. It marks the northernmost point at which the sun can be seen at the winter solstice (about Dec. or the Sahara Desert--they need houses specially geared to the environment. Arctic hunters construct igloos out of hard-packed tundra snow, which acts as insulation to keep out air as frigid as -73.3 [degrees] C (-100 [degrees] F). The hunters wield powerful knives to slice snow into blocks, then layer blocks into a sphere, a round circular shape that forces wind to blow over an igloo igloo (ĭg`l  ) [Inuit,=house]. The Eskimos traditionally had three types of houses. in a curve rather than strike full
force.Desert dwellers Desert Dwellers are a group of musicians and music producers that create primarily downtempo electronic music. The group grew out of a collaboration between Treavor Walton (Treavor Moontribe) and Amani Friend in 2002. resort to different strokes to stay cool. For centuries in Tunisia, people dug out pits in solid rock and carved houses underground, removed from the scorching scorch v. scorched, scorch·ing, scorch·es v.tr. 1. To burn superficially so as to discolor or damage the texture of. See Synonyms at burn1. 2. sun. The sun can pound on rock and it doesn't heat through, water doesn't seep in, and rock acts as a natural wind barrier. How did they do it without high-tech tools? "Rocks are layers of minerals, and if you can find the seams in the layers, you can use a hammer and chisel to pound rock until it splits or flakes," says Wong. In Syria, some villagers adorn houses with beehive-shaped cones for roofs. The roof is constructed piecemeal, Wong explains: One dried mud layer slightly overhangs another. Then builders use mud plaster to add a smooth finish to their cone homes. Think you could be as creative if you had to design a house from all natural materials? Why not give it a try? Strange Dwellings [GRAPH OMITTED] Cross-Curricular Connection Art: Design your own home using only natural or recycled materials. Write a short paragraph describing where the house would be built, and what materials it would be constructed with. Did You Know? * In natural houses like Earthship, you can use sand in a filter system to remove impurities in water. * In new houses, activated carbon grains are used in filters to strain out large impurities in water and to absorb chemicals that you can't see. * Animal bones were used by early hunters as a basic structural element in house construction. Because bones have a high calcium content, they are very sturdy. National Science Education Standards The National Science Education Standards (NSES) are a set of guidelines for the science education in primary and secondary schools in the United States, as established by the National Research Council in 1996. Grades 5-8: properties and changes of properties in matter * motions and forces * transfer of energy Grades 9-12: structure and properties of matter * interactions of energy and matter * geochemical cycles Resources Structures: The Way Things Are Built by Nigel Hawkes, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990 Why Design? by Anna Slafer and Kevin Cahill
Kevin Cahill represents District 101 in the New York State Assembly, which comprises large portions of Ulster County and both the town and village of Rhinebeck in Dutchess County. , Chicago Review Press, 1995 Directions: Match the word(s) in the left column with the correct phrases on the right.
-- 1. foundation a. overhanging layers
-- 2. igloos b. powdered mixture of limestone and clay
-- 3. compaction e. a round shape
-- 4. cantilevered d. base for a house
-- 5. cement e. used by early humans to hold logs in place
-- 6. sphere f. the process of solidifying dirt with a
sledgehammer
-- 7. wood g. ice houses
-- 8. strips of h. home-building material that consists
animal skin of layers of dense fibers
STRANGE STRUCTURES 1.d 2. g 3. f 4. a 5. b 6. c 7. h 8. |
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