Hi, I'm Vinay, the hexayurt guy, a Hacker News regular, also the release coordinator for Ethereum. You might remember me from a post I did about Ethereum recently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977146
I'll be around if you have any questions.
I'll be around if you have any questions.
But as the suburbs have taught us, sprawl is incredibly costly. Raising the standard of living for spread out peoples is harder because by definition its going to involve more transport energy cost and less economies of scale.
Also, at an almost philosophical sense, the single-family dwelling is itself a symptom of the problem. Castle doctrine and every-man-is-an-island and all that. Shared walls mean shared lives, or more importantly, acknowledge the fact that we have shared lives and need to make the best of it.
I don't think we solve this via 1-unit structures housing <10 people a pop. And history shows that hundreds-unit structures over did it. How do we create cheap, open-source 10 - 100 unit, 2 - 6 floor, structures. Something that could actually go in those slums you mention (which these yurts would get destroyed in).
Anyway hope this didn't come off too critical, I really appreciate that you're even working on this problem and presenting it so clearly.
I like this project a lot.
Careful. You're fighting millenia of human nature here. That typically doesn't end well.
From TFA:
> In disaster relief applications the hexayurt can cost less than a tent, and be constructed in far larger quantities than tent supplies allow.
How do you handle ventilation, heating/cooling, bathroom, fuel for cooking, etc.?