[Discuss] Open Source Ecological Housing

Wed Jun 29 22:51:18 UTC 2016

Catarina - (quite the digression now, but
the community you're looking for is "liveaboards". small overlap with
"maker" community (3d printer on one: http://www.upcraft.it/archives/1259)

this community is quite active & responsive:
https://beta.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BostonLiveaboards/info

Did a quick search, I couldn't find online about MI -- you should call the
boat permit / harbormasters in your area and ask to at least get the
official line
http://www.seattle-houseboat.com/faqs
http://www.houseboatmagazine.com/2010/11/the-laws-of-living-aboard

i do not know about houseboats, but know a few things about liveaboard on
small sailboats. i suggest you find a forum specific to your interest &
search specifically on there -- google will not help you here, many boat
folks are fall outside the "internet / SEO / social media age".)

~~~
narwhaledu.org, educational robots <http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu>
 [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog <http://www.orangenarwhals.com>,
orangenarwhals

On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 5:32 PM, Catarina Mota <catarina at openmaterials.org>
wrote:

> That really is amazing! Living in the ocean is a long time dream, but I
> guess I'll have to make do with Missouri's lakes :) Do you know if
> permits/build codes are similar for house boats?
>
> On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Andrew Quitmeyer <andy at comingle.io>
> wrote:
>
>> Not to derail too much on floating buildings, but also this project is
>> AMAZING: http://www.svseeker.com/wp/?v=7516fd43adaa
>>
>> Doug Jackson is building a huge 75 foot steel boat for living on and
>> letting scientists do research on, and he documents the whole thing (and he
>> builds it in Tulsa!)
>>
>>
>> __
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Andrew Quitmeyer - PhD
>> Founder / Designer / Documentarian
>> www.comingle.io
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 4:43 PM, Catarina Mota <
>> catarina at openmaterials.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> Sure, and I don't pretend to be all that good at marketing copy, I've
>>>> just been studying it lately because I realized I wasn't any good at all. I
>>>> think I am pretty good at recognizing when a builder is having a hard time
>>>> switching to marketing because I have a lot of subjective experience with
>>>> that.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I agree with what you said. My instinct was also to put the buildings
>>> and campaign scope (what it's funding) at the top, but kickstarter told us
>>> to move it down... Anyway, I'm just a nerd and don't know the first thing
>>> about marketing :D
>>>
>>>
>>>> That get-in-then-build-out approach is something I'm extremely
>>>> interested in. It's counter intuitive to most people. Typically, the
>>>> options are to buy what everyone else is buying or do it totally on your
>>>> own. If you pick the former, then you need to get financing, and banks only
>>>> finance large mortgages. If you do it yourself, you're probably limited to
>>>> a microhouse. I think there's a strong case to be made for the intermediate
>>>> approach where, because of modular and open source standards, you can spend
>>>> what would have been your down payment building a small house, and then
>>>> spend what would have been your yearly mortgage payments expanding it. Or
>>>> not. That isn't an option with traditional building techniques and
>>>> communities, but it very well might be with the new stuff. You could tie it
>>>> in to current events. There's probably something in the pitch that
>>>> millenials and retirees need a house that's as cheap as a car.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, that is it exactly! This project was born out of our need for a
>>> "get-in-then-build-out" house - which no one else seemed to be able to
>>> provide. So, we were just "scratching our own itch" (as Raymond puts it)
>>> and then realized this make make sense for others as well.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I wonder if you can deconstruct modular houses with the same
>>>> transaction costs as constructing them. How much can you recover? Do you
>>>> get the original components back if you start pulling out nails and screws?
>>>>
>>>
>>> We're always changing things around here and did quite a bit of
>>> deconstruction. The take from that is that you can use pretty much all the
>>> lumber - even entire modules, without taking them apart - and about 75% of
>>> the fasteners. But taking things apart and then putting them back together
>>> is a lot of work. And you can't salvage the foundation, or the compressed
>>> earth block walls, or any buried pipes (well, you could, but it would suck
>>> to dig them up). So it's doable - if you need to - but not something I'd
>>> like to do every year :)
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> A couple interesting links about this:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.businessinsider.com/housing-supply-crisis-is-looming-2016-3
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_aravena_my_architectural_philosophy_bring_the_community_into_the_process?language=en
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 2:51 PM, Emilio Velis <
>>>>> contacto at emiliovelis.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> So I have this project I'm interested in making happen here in El
>>>>>> Salvador and am getting a lot of people involved to fund it and make it
>>>>>> happen. Very much worth it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll stay on the loop and keep you posted soon! Thanks for sharing!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 29 June 2016 at 13:42, Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Here are thoughts as they occur to me:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I feel like you should lead with this stuff.
>>>>>>> http://openbuildinginstitute.org/buildings/
>>>>>>> It's easy to get excited about the technical details you had to get
>>>>>>> working to make the project functional, but customers aren't going to care
>>>>>>> until they want to live there. So tell them stories about how nice it is to
>>>>>>> live there.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm interested in the infrastructure necessary to get a serious open
>>>>>>> source hardware project working, but not many other people are. There are a
>>>>>>> lot more people interested in cheap, efficient microhouses, and a whole lot
>>>>>>> more people interested in green tech, and even more interested in small
>>>>>>> living spaces.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Don't use a screenshot of the kickstarter video with "play" on it as
>>>>>>> a link to kickstarter. If it looks like a button to start a video it should
>>>>>>> start an embedded video.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the kickstarter campaign is
>>>>>>> funding. You already build the house, and you don't seem to be trying to
>>>>>>> build a bunch more houses, like for a community in Africa or something. I
>>>>>>> feel like maybe "you're funding a source of all the knowledge and skills
>>>>>>> you need to design and build a house yourself" is the primary value
>>>>>>> proposition, but it's kind of buried. Oh, okay, there it is. The list of
>>>>>>> what the campaign is funding is a quick set of bullet points at the end of
>>>>>>> the video. It's also buried in the about/roadmap and contribute/support us
>>>>>>> on kickstarter sections of the website. I'm pretty sure I saw it somewhere
>>>>>>> on the kickstarter page too. It seems like it should be a lot easier to
>>>>>>> find out exactly what is being funded.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Do you think the open source documentation will be detailed enough
>>>>>>> for someone to build everything without paying to learn how? The
>>>>>>> implication from the description is that people are expected to offset the
>>>>>>> cost of the build by charging people for the knowledge they acquire during
>>>>>>> the build. I'd be interested in following how general contractors and
>>>>>>> builders incorporate this as an option in their business.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Also, in general, it feels like you could summarize and cut the text
>>>>>>> down by at least 50%. The diagrams take up a lot of space but don't
>>>>>>> necessarily illuminate much. The "we offer/you can" diagram takes a couple
>>>>>>> minutes to understand (the fonts aren't helping).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The video's already shot, but as I parse out what's being funded it
>>>>>>> struck me that you might not want to characterize your location as "in the
>>>>>>> middle of nowhere" when a big part of the plan is to build a facility
>>>>>>> people are supposed to travel to and use. Maybe something like "the perfect
>>>>>>> place to live efficiently" or "the opposite of NYC" would be better
>>>>>>> marketing. Along similar lines, it seems unnecessarily misleading to
>>>>>>> compare the cost of your microhouse to an average $360K house. It took
>>>>>>> about 30 seconds of googling to find that the costs you're estimating are
>>>>>>> right in line with microhouses
>>>>>>> https://padtinyhouses.com/how-much-does-a-tiny-house-cost/ and I
>>>>>>> doubt you're poaching anyone who was planning to build a brand new 2000
>>>>>>> square foot McMansion to switch to building a microhouse. Even if you do
>>>>>>> get some of them, they'll compare yours to other microhouses. Oh man, and
>>>>>>> you buried something towards the end to the effect that you're crowdfunding
>>>>>>> part of the costs and bootstrapping the rest; that should be near the top!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Catarina Mota <
>>>>>>> catarinamfmota at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Dear fellow open sourcerers,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> We just launched a new project that has been many years in the
>>>>>>>> making. It's called the Open Building Institute and it's an open source
>>>>>>>> initiative to make affordable eco-housing accessible to everyone.
>>>>>>>> The project is based on collaborative rapid-builds, a modular system, and
>>>>>>>> open source machines.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Check it out: http://openbuildinginstitute.org
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Any feedback and collaborations will be greatly appreciated.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>>> Catarina
>>>>>>>>
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