Space-Age Houses

An anonymous reader writes "The dream of building the Jetson's Skypad Apartment may come to true because technology designed for space could become the basis of the new German Antarctic station. The same ultra-light composites that ESA uses onboard its spacecraft for antennas and solar panels, will be used to make a self-supporting lightweight shell-like structure able to withstand severe earthquakes. This approach is in sharp contrast to many contemporary design solutions that use ever more steel and concrete..."

Comments

Sounds perfect for Florida...

[BerntB]

Should be perfect for Florida and other places with "high winds", using ultra-light composites... :-)

Re:Sounds perfect for Florida...

[Uggy]

What kind of poor concrete house do you live in that can only withstand a category 3-4? When Georges passed over Puerto Rico in 1998, we didn't lose a single concrete house. Not a one (well except for mud slides in mountainous regions, but there's no helping that).

The winds that hit my house were 140+ and in other areas in a direct path with the eye got even worse. San Juan metro area looked like Hiroshima afterwards. I never realized how many buildings there were with all the trees gone. But we don't have mobile homes where, and very little wood construction. Everything is concrete boxes.

Don't know what sort of building codes you have over there, but I'd pit my house against a category 5. Not like I'd like it, but I think we could handle it.

I guess since we live on an island, there's no place to evacuate to, so we've got build our houses tough.

What's cooler?

[bobhagopian]

"The house is designed to be autonomous. It uses energy-efficient solar power as well as advanced systems for recycling and cleaning water. Another idea, now on the drawing board, is to include a system to remove pathogenic particles in the sub-micron range from the air."

I think this is the coolest part about the house, not the ultra-light composites. Think about never having to pay an utility bill again! Sure, you can do that for just about any house, but one that's built with self-sufficiency in mind is nice.

Good idea

[macshune]

These houses totally look cool and the design is awesome, but they use exotic materials that are probably only produced in huge quantities when large institutions have the money to get someone to cook up a batch. Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (more commonly, just Carbon Fiber)? Can't buy that at Home Depot, last time I checked:)

It's a great exercise and it's exciting to the see the future take shape (literally!), but until regular folks can buy up some of this stuff to build homes out of, that's all it's gonna be.

Sounds familiar

[nytes]

Of course, you could also jump into your time machine and visit the house of the future at Disneyland, circa 1957.

It was made so well that the wrecking ball just bounced off of it when they tried to demolish it. They had to bring in a crew with saws.

Re:Deja vu

[shis-ka-bob]

Yup, I was thinking that too. I never really understood why Bucky was so concerned about the weight of a house. For compressive loads, a good cheap concrete seems quite reasonable. If you are talking about an aircraft, then cost is a function of weight. But I don't buy that arguement for a house. You can already drive a mobile home to a lot and install it an afternoon, but mobile homes are not considered 'premium' because of their mobility. Can any Slashdotter explain why lightweight is an asset in a house?

I can understand the 'money as function of weight' argument for an Antartic station that is air lifted, but that is rather exceptional. I'm wanting to understand why Bucky's design never took off (pun intented.)