Out of the Box
Housing as a lifestyle, not a building.
A vision of architecture and town planning to facilitate prosperity in remote Aboriginal communities.
Out of the Box report
Produced by kalkadoon.org
For The “Gunya 21 Link Tank”
July 2006
We are in the process of revising this report, with the assistance of Paul Donohue from the Queensland University of Technology “Regional and Urban Planning” department and inspiration from the NGA WHARE ORANGA Whanau eco-village & learning centres Project in New Zealand to include issues of management and financing. - stay tuned.
Posted by kurityityin as HOME - current news, Sustainability at 7:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time
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Out of the Box
Housing as a lifestyle, not a building.
A vision of architecture and town planning to facilitate prosperity in remote Aboriginal communities.
Out of the Box report
Produced by kalkadoon.org
For The “Gunya 21 Link Tank”
July 2006
Posted by kurityityin as HOME - current news, Sustainability at 11:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time
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We have decided to present domes in this issue for a couple of reasons. Firstly because they provide a cheap, strong and easily transported and constructed building system that is very relevant to our explorations of appropriate housing and other building options for Aboriginal communities. We are also presenting this section to promote “The Dome Company” who we are working with at the Greenbuild and Ec-Show. Robbie Lusher from The Dome Company has helped us heaps by lending us a display dome frame for our stall at the show. We hope to explore with Robbie the options for domes, we have already put together a dome proposal with Robbie’s assistance to Pitta Pitta traditional owners and the Boulia Shire Council for an eco-tourism project based around domes. We look forward to thrashing out this idea and other options for housing solutions during our time in Sydney - stay tuned for what we come up with.
Because Domes do not rely on large beams or other “big” materials, but lots of smaller prefabricated components they can be transported in a ute, trailer or even a small boat and therefore have obvious benefits to remote building programs. As they can be fully transported to a building site without the need for motor vehicles, construction does not have to involve the destruction that often occurs through trucks, tractors and the roads that they need.
Domes are cheap, flexible, and very strong too. But they do have problems. Collecting water from a dome roof is not easy and traditional roofs or “skins” are either canvas or some kind of plastic which have limited life spans, or they are made of ferro cement which is not at all recyclable or sustainable, though they do allow for guttering to collect water. However all these “problems” are easily overcome with a bit of creativity, and that’s what kalkadoon.org is hoping to do in order to develop an innovative kit home package as part of our future range of housing options.
The Dome Company
some groovy photos of domes from Pacific Domes
Posted by kurityityin as HOME - current news, Sustainability at 11:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time
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by John Tracey
“That there should be a massive housing problem in an
affluent society is surely an immense and intolerable
paradox.”
-E.F. Schumacher
August 16th, 1911-Sept 4th, 1977
Palm Island housing report
- kalkadoon.org
E.F. Shumacher wrote a book entitled “Small is Beautiful” As a short person, I took particular interest in his ideas. Unfortunately I didn’t find a political analysis of hight-ism. But “Small is Beautiful” did provide a profound analysis of poverty, affluence, the environment and the deep interconnectedness of them all. In today’s globally warmed political climate such things are not new ideas; However Schumacher was considered a fringe fruitcake, along with all the other flower power hippies of the era, his analysis became a landmark of the alternative movement but remained at that until his death.
Schumacher’s vision did not only “analyse”, it also had an in - built strategy for global social and economic change. Basically his story was that the poor are so poor because the rich are so rich. If the rich were not so rich, the poor would not be so poor. “Live simply so all may simply live” became the slogan that made the “Small is Beautiful” concept into a political strategy - through activity in your own back yard - literally. Schumacher was the global visionary that laid the groundwork for the permaculture and sustainability movements in western society.
However since Schumacher’s passing the affluent world has found some spiritual value in his words and embraced many of them. The affluent adherents of a spiritual lifestyle seemed to have forgotten about the poor though. Too often “live simply so all may simply live” has degenerated into “live simply because it feels nice” and unfortunately some now even try to sell this simple life as a real estate and tourism asset.
Until recently this site proudly presented the “Gondwana Statement” which was a statement drawn up and endorsed at a conference that kalkadoon.org were presenters at. This statement was a concise and clear articulation of the Schumacher vision as relevant to Australia. Unbeknown to kalkadoon.org at the time this conference was part of developing a community interface for a real estate development trying to sell spiritually uplifting lifestyles to the affluent. So we have removed the statement and disassociate ourselves from it.
However the essence of the statement, Schumacher’s vision and Aboriginal disadvantage continues. kalkadoon.org is a part of working out the relationship between them into the future. Thats one way of describing the whole idea, as I understand it anyway.
“Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it.”
-E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful
Posted by kurityityin as HOME - current news, Sustainability at 2:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time
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What is the Rainbow Power Company?
check out their website
by John Tracey
Nimbin, whatever it is in reality, is an icon of the old alternative movement in Australia. That icon has a series of sub-icons such as the annual mardi-grass and the street murals. However the most powerful (excuse the pun) Nimbinic icon is the Rainbow Power Company. I first heard of this mythical beast decades ago. Their experiments with car alternators and bicycle dynamos inspired many attempts to copy them. The copyists I knew were always given help and advice when they asked. R.P.C. has developed into a major retailer of sustainability products, not just but especially electricity generation.
The R.P.C. are not the only the only business to develop alternative technology. The major fossil-fuel companies have invested heavily in solar power and offer a wide range of products. However their motivation has been to supplement and evolve their own dominance of the energy market. R.P.C. have encouraged energy self sufficiency and self management - an altogether different agenda.
The energy systems for our future remote housing developments (including a totally independant kit home) will be supplied by the R.P.C. We will also market and sell their products through the Pitta Pitta Art Gallery and Education Centre.
Posted by kurityityin as HOME - current news, Sustainability at 1:27 PM Eastern Standard Time
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“Ram pumps”
The “ram pump” does not require electricity, wind or fossil fuels, just flowing water.
The power of the water flow presurises air which then forces small amounts of water with enough pressure to rise considerable heights above the water source. They wont fill anything quickly, but they chug along happily, 24 hours a day as long as the water flows.
They are ideal for a flowing creek or river with a gradual decline -where an intake pipe, upstream, will be higher than the pump, down stream. Same with an elevated dam wall with a constant overflow. However there are easy ways of adapting it to a flowing creek without a decline. There are even systems to connect it to closed dams and still water. - as the water flows from the dam to it’s lower destination the pump can send some of that water to a tank much higher than the dam.
Here is a simple animation from the Schou company website that explains how it works. (hint to working it out - where it says “feed pipe” and “water in” Imagine water gushing in really fast. When it forces the red ball to block the gap, the force of the water has nowhere to go except into the air chamber -where it pressurises the air. A (red) valve blocks the water into the pressurised tank and it has nowhere to go except through the “water out” pipe)
(you can buy ram pumps from the Rainbow Power Company)- checkout “pumps” in their products section
Posted by kurityityin as HOME - current news, Sustainability at 1:19 PM Eastern Standard Time
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by John Tracey
King Canute is a European dreamtime figure who was famous for commanding the tide not to come in. While he has often been charachterised as an egomaniac fool, the truth is he was challenging the notion of human dominanation over nature. Canute wanted to teach his people that despite the kings political and mythical power, he was powerless to influence the tide - and he proved it. The war against global warming could learn from Canute’s wisdom. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by kurityityin as HOME - current news, Sustainability at 1:17 PM Eastern Standard Time
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by John Tracey
Many years ago I found myself wandering around a paddock in North Queensland with an old farmer. He was showing me some of his rusty old machinery lying around the farm., “One day” he was going to restore it all. A small but heavy cast iron machine caught my attention. It was a water pump that was powered by dumping it on the top of a fire - any fire, anywhere. The farmer told me how it worked, but I forgot straight away and spent decades trying to find out again what it was and how it worked. Well now I know. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by kurityityin as HOME - current news, Sustainability at 8:16 PM Eastern Standard Time
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