Convergence

Zach Horton

Category: Ecology (page 1 of 2)

Theorizing Scale

A few months ago, after over 8 years of research and writing, I published my first academic book, The Cosmic Zoom. Writing this incredibly meaningful book changed my life, and it is my ardent hope that it will assist others as well. This post is an introduction and guide to the book. But first, my immense gratitude to my amazing editors at the University of Chicago Press.

This is a book about scale. About how one thing transforms into another, about how different subjects and objects encounter one another across scales, and about how we—as disciplined or creative thinkers—come to know (and unknow) the parts of the world that inhabit different scales than we can access with our senses. Such knowledge is the product of mediation, of conjoined processes of communication, sensory stimulation, and transformation. All media is trans-scalar, and everything we access that is trans-scalar is mediated.

The Cosmic Zoom develops a medial theory of scale that accounts for its disciplinary history, the scalar politics of today, and what I call the “scalar paradox of knowledge production”: the fact that scale seems to be arbitrary, a human convention, and yet investigation of both the material and social world reveals that scalar difference is a fundamental dynamic of the universe, and one that confounds disciplined knowledge production more than it bolsters it. How do we account for this paradox? Is the cosmos scaled, or do we impose scale upon it? Rather than collapse the paradox, this book argues that both are true, and the cyclical process, or circuit, of human stabilization of particular scales and the irruption of scalar difference beyond the human constitute the medial dynamic of scale.

The Cosmic Zoom considers the current moment in history as one of profoundly important scalar politics, which formulate or contest the constellation and characterization of particular scales, producing zooms that distribute and mediate affect, engendering particular scalar identities. Scalar politics determines human relationships to anthropogenic processes at planetary scales like climate change and big data, as well as human relationships with non-humans at all scales. To take the measure of our current, troubled epoch, I argue that we must come to a far better understanding of scalar mediation.

It is my hope that this work will provide a foundation for and help to catalyze the new interdisciplinary field of Scale Studies.

I thought it might be helpful to provide something of a guide to this sprawling book, so here goes…

First Chapter and Index

Here’s the first chapter of the book, plus the index.

Full Table of Contents

Here’s an unpublished, complete table of contents that includes all section titles in the book (the published version includes only the chapter titles). Along with the published index, this may help you hone in on the conceptual needle in the cosmic haystack!

Key Concepts

The book develops a number of key concepts, a few of which are listed here:

Scalar Difference: A fundamental difference of intensity between all assemblages that impels change. Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 5.

Scalar Spectrum: The range of possible scalar difference, without implied continuity between its ranges. Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3.

Scalar Collapse: The negation of difference between different ranges of the scalar spectrum through their superimposition in speculative media. Ch 1, Ch 4.

Resolving Cut: The relative stabilization of a scalar milieu produced by an observing entity. Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 4, Ch 5.

Resolution: The degree to which ecological detail can be differentiated within a scalar milieu, as outcome of the conceptual and technical stabilization of particular scales. Ch 2.

Pan-Scalar Humanism: An ideology that positions the human at the center of the constellation of scales. Ch 1, Ch 3 (“Toying With Ideas: The Scalar Analog”), Ch 4.

Analog Scale: Scalar difference represented visually as continuous space, optically and conceptually equidistant to the human subject. As distinct from analog media, which must occlude its own seams in order to produce analog scale. See also “Zoetrope Model of Scale” and “equidistant optics.” Ch 3, Ch 4.

Digital Scale: A representation of scale as a spectrum of discrete and discontinuous milieus. As distinct from digital media, which often produces analog scale, especially when non-recursive. Ch 4, Ch 6.

Trans-Scalar Ecology: Tracing the scalar relations, co-constitutive dynamics, and interdependencies of entities across scalar difference (scalar relationality as metadiscipline). Ch 5.

Drama of Resolution: A form of narrative that continually resolves new scales, re-articulating unresolved detail with newly resolved detail. See also “scalar memory.” Ch 2.

Trans-Scalar Encounter: The perspectival encounter between assemblages across discontinuous regions of the scalar spectrum, as resolving event. Ch 1, Ch 6.

Intensive Scale: Scale as primary differentiation, prior to particular knowledge formations (ontological). Ch 5.

Extensive Scale: Scale as secondary negotiation between stabilized surfaces (medial). Ch 5.

Recursive Database Subjectivity: The encounter of the self from different scalar perspectives afforded by database-driven media. Ch 6.

Disciplinary Resolution: The stabilization of particular scales for knowledge production through resolving cuts and the establishment of epistemic protocols. Ch 4, Ch 5 (“Disciplinary Scale”).

Trans-Scalar Constellation: The articulation of multiple stabilized scalar milieus into a world. See also “Zoom” and “Scalar Politics.” Ch 4.

Here’s a PDF version of this guide.

Disciplinary Guide

For those coming to the book from diverse vectors…


Media Studies: Entire book.

Visual Studies / Design (especially Ray and Charles Eames): Ch 3, Ch 4.

Literary Studies: Ch 1, Ch 2.

Science and Technology Studies: Ch 1, Ch 4, Ch 5.

Digital Humanities and Digital Cultural Studies: Ch 6.

Software Studies: Ch 5 (“Lost in Trans-Scalar Ecology: Powers of Ten Interactive”), Ch 6.

Environmental Studies / Ecology: Ch 1, Ch 5.

Philosophy / Critical Theory: Ch 1, Ch 5, Ch 6.

Cosmic Zoom History

Beyond its theoretical content, The Cosmic Zoom is also a history of the cosmic zoom form. I wrote a blog post for Chicago University Press with some cosmic zoom film recommendations here.

This book lays the theoretical groundwork for my future academic and creative work, and mode of living. I earnestly hope it assists you in your future endeavors, whatever form and scale they may take.

Domes 2022 Update: Infrastructure

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated this site (which I blame on the coronavirus blues), but it’s time to kick off a series of updates! I started this site years ago and named it Convergence because I intended it to be an unholy attempt to mix together different strands of my work and life that I wanted to bring together, experimentally, in the hopes that new connections, directions, insights, and dreams might emerge at the intersections. In 2022 I feel particularly invigorated to further explore this project. Plus, I know that many of you are interested in updates! So here goes…

The Domes project has been most consistently presented on this site because it represents, for me, a deep convergence of a number of my loves, including ecology, scale, family, form, dwelling, energy, systems thinking, and creativity. Let’s start out, then, with a short video of drone footage taken in January by Jon Watts. This is a candid snapshot of progress on the site that I’ll describe below:

In the past couple of years the Domes project has entered an exciting final phase. We completed the interior in 2020 and I began to focus on getting all of its interconnected systems up and running, as well as applying all I’ve learned in the previous five years to re-design some of its infrastructure. This lead to the design of a third structure, an above-ground utility hub and garage. We decided to locate this behind the domes proper, where we could dig up and re-configure our primary electrical and hydronic runs to better integrate the various components of the project’s infrastructure. I wanted to eliminate lingering underground water pressure issues that caused water to find its way into the domes (which are, after all, under ground) during heavy rains. These were issues that no one predicted before the build, and it is in fact counter-intuitive that sealed conduits would become flowing water pipes during heavy rains. But that’s exactly what happened (and in fact always happens in all conduits). Above-ground buildings are rarely affected by this because there isn’t enough water pressure in the underground conduits to push water high enough to empty into the structures. Plus, urban infrastructure has shorter runs and thus less of an opportunity to build up hydrostatic pressure. In the domes, however, long underground conduits and high hydrostatic pressure after rains easily push water up through conduits.

The opportunity to build a utility hub as a separate building allowed me to de-couple the domes from these long utility runs, eliminating the problem and creating an access point for new utility tie-ins, such as firefighting equipment, rainwater cachement, and off-grid battery banks. When digging new utility trenches, I also installed a deep “sump well” in the hillside that allows us to actually see far underground (visually or via sensors) to gather data about conditions underground. Here our friend Neal is helping me install the well:

The new building has a radiant floor that will be connected to a “heat dump” loop of our primary solar thermal heating system. This will transform its foundation into a massive heat sink to automatically handle excess thermal energy generated by the system. It can also be used, however, to provide on-demand thermal energy to the new building if/when desired. The electronic and hydronic interconnections between the domes, this new hub, and our outdoor utilities kiosk are extensive, and go far beyond the usual connections between detached buildings. This is because I’ve designed the entire site to be a single cybernetic system embedded in its natural surroundings rather than the autonomous islands that standard buildings are designed to be. Rather than the standard model of delivering utilities to autonomous buildings, here information, water, heat, and power are all shared in a multi-directional network.

I designed the foundation of the new utility hub with the necessary infrastructure, including underground plumbing and a large hexagonal pad, for a 5,000 gallon water tank. The roof is designed to collect rainwater and store it in the tank, then draw on that water for firefighting and emergency water needs. This new addition to our hydronic system is also designed to accept the input of other sources of water, such as a potential second well, in the future.

Beyond its main functionality as a utility hub, the new building will also serve as a garage so that we’ll be able to permanently house a vehicle on-site. And finally we’ll have a place to store our ladders! When the center of your ceiling is 15 feet high, changing lightbulbs can be quite a challenge! The building will also serve as a mini workshop to help keep the domes themselves less cluttered.

We considered a number of different building materials, and ultimately decided on steel as the most viable choice. We immediately ruled out wood as entirely inappropriate for the land’s fire ecology. Cinderblock or other masonry was both expensive and too monolithic, aesthetically, for our purposes. Metal is fireproof and economical; we hope we will be happy with the choice!

The pandemic has caused massive global shortages of steel, and the fabrication of our building has been delayed. However, we decided to move ahead with our foundation and are incredibly happy with how it turned out! And now all of our underground water problems have been fixed!

After we switched on our initial solar thermal system in late 2020 we were amazed: whenever there was sun it generated nearly unlimited thermal energy and used only only 60 watts (the amount of an old incandescent light bulb) of electricity to power a small pump. Compare this to the enormous amount of electricity it takes to heat up water (which is our backup system for long period of no sun). Even though we harness a great deal of electricity from the sun via the solar PV array I built in 2017, our solar thermal array feels far more magical. We decided pretty quickly to upgrade it with a second array of thermal collectors. My sister, Jess, and mom, Ann, and our friend Yves dug the forms for the new array on top of the second dome last year, and we poured them with the foundation. I then assembled the array with our friend Michael. Unfortunately, a sensor failure prevented me from bringing the full solar thermal system back online. When I next visit the site and have time, I’ll get it all running again, and our solar thermal capacity should be double. That’s a big deal, as this thermal system supplies heat to the domes (via radiant flooring), generates all of our hot water, and will, as I mentioned, be able to pipe excess heat to the new building.

We’ve also worked quite a bit on the interior of the domes, doing finish electrical, furnishing, and begun staying there. Those details will be covered in a future post!

We’ve also begun to turn our attention to landscaping. Two years ago we began to put temporary cages around new oak tree sprouts to protect them from grazing deer. Many have survived, but growing into a large tree is a long process! Meanwhile, Jess has been collecting stones from the land and has been experimenting with some masonry to help transition the front of the domes smoothly into the natural grasses of the land (which we hope to mow/cut far less in the future). She has also worked laboriously to create a paving stone pathway from the front patio to the kiosk and new garage in the back:

Next steps include further landscaping, connecting the many sensors and actuators in the domes together into the master “brain” that will allow the buildings to sense and respond to their environment, and of course, building the utility garage. As always, we welcome anyone who wants to join us on the land, especially this coming summer!

Elements and Flow

After the twin 2017 fires that ravaged the Domes and the countryside that surrounds them, I gave a lot of thought to what it means—practically, historically, and philosophically—to live in a fire ecology. The long silence on this blog is partly due to the mourning period prompted by those fires, as well as the difficulty of formulating an adequate response to them from the point of view of dwelling, as I’ve explored here in the past.

California has always been a fire ecology, which means that its ecosystems evolved with cyclical wildfire incorporated as a key process. Wildfire serves many ecological functions, including culling insect populations that can be injurious to trees, checking the growth of non-native grasses and other plants, and returning nutrients trapped in above-ground structures (such as dead trees) to the soil. Historically, northern CA burned, on average, once every 15 years. Indigenous peoples in the region welcomed and co-existed with this fire ecology. After European colonization, however, fire suppression became the a new tool of capitalist land management. Not just fire departments for towns and cities, but state fire agencies, were formed to protect private and public property from burning, which would reduce its value. This new emphasis on fire suppression was effective at disrupting CA’s fire ecology. Now instead of frequent low-intensity, fast-burning wildfires, CA faces massive, intense ones that are far more damaging. This is what we faced in 2017. Fuels (both natural and human-made) had built up in the environment for over a hundred years, and conditions were ripe for destruction.

After the half-finished Domes lit up like a funeral pyre, and yet survived, I felt that our experiment in radical architecture faced a critical crossroads. Had the design been validated, and all that remained was to complete them as planned? Or did the significant damage they received suggest that if anything, we had been too complacent in our planning, and not given fire its full due?

The response of most landowners in the area to the fires (which burned almost all homes on the mountain to the ground) was to either abandon the area entirely and move to wetter ecosystems, or to rebuild their houses in deliberately altered ecosystems that contained as little fuel as possible. This latter strategy took the form of relocating building sites to open fields, far from trees, while killing and removing trees that felt dangerously close. Such a scorched-earth policy, far more damaging than the fires had been, revealed something deep and sinister in the human project of dwelling, a colonial and all-too-human fixation on the remaking of ecology to suit aesthetics and psychology. While this has been the program for Western civilization for thousands of years at the largest of scales, humans like to believe that these are unwanted and accidental effects of large scale industrialization. This is the logic of anthropogenic climate change: we didn’t know about these long term and global scale effects! And we certainly don’t want things to be this way! But this same logic plays out at very intimate scales, in backyards, when a wildfire and the actual or potential loss of property makes a 200 year old tree next to the house seem threatening.

Personally, I don’t believe that a short-lived human has the right to take the life of a 200 year old organism, especially for reasons of aesthetics or fear. But could the Domes project provide an alternative model or logic? It was designed to shift human perspective to larger and longer scales, to re-conceive of dwelling and building as open ended and future oriented ecological processes. The Domes were for a time 250 years in the future. And yet, here was fire, at the doorstep, today.

There is no easy answer to how to live with fire, to be part of fire ecology and not stand against it. To build anything is to resist entropy, and if it is to house and protect and preserve something for the future, such infrastructure must resist the atomizing forces of the elements: earth, air, water, and fire. How to resist without disrupting, how to dwell with fire without being consumed (figuratively or literally) by it?

The next three years of Dome building, proceeding only in brief periods of the summers and winters, saw a number of adjustments with these questions in mind. In 2018 we repaired as much of the fire damage as we could and instituted a new policy of leaving no wood or plastic-derived material exposed to the larger environment. Vents and drains that had partially melted or burned in the fires were dug down, under ground, and transitioned to metal for their short above-ground stints. Our long-planned copper wall cap and daylight tube cap were completed in copper.

The Domes are underground, even if the “ground” in question is elevated. This means that water, perhaps more prosaically than fire, poses the biggest problem. Water flows downward, and downward in this case is inside. The effect of rain and time on the earth, only recently dug up and moved, also caused significant settling. Earth, when wet, flows like slow motion fluid, which actually leads to cracks forming at the highest points on the domes, and around immovable elements like vents. Like a cosmetic surgeon, Jess ferreted out every crack and marked it with paint.

Our excavators, Jerry and Wyatt, transported more earth to the top of the domes, then dug a number of trenches for our next steps. They then left us for a week to work with the positive and negative space they had created.

One of the most surreal things about the Domes is that the roof is just a hill, with regular grass, plants, and animals living on it. This means that we ended up digging trenches and burying things on our roof, truly scrambling the notions of inside and outside, above and below. In this case, we needed to lay in electrical conduit and the supply and return plumbing for our future solar thermal array. This would cycle water through the interior and roof of the domes, heating it with direct solar energy (no photovoltaics needed) to supply and store heat energy inside. This meant that the pipes needed to be ultra-insulated. We accomplished this by encasing them in thick pipe insulation, then building rigid, waterproof foam boxes around that. At the same time, we built foundation forms for the thermal array.

In order to more effectively transport rainwater off the roof (thus allowing less of it to seep down onto the domes below, and especially the front “pit,” an area in between the two domes, the tunnel passageway that connects them, and the front retaining wall, an area where water tended to collect and seep into the foundation), we had our coppersmith Tony create a large collection pan above the pit. It directed water into a vertical drain that empties down the hill in front of the domes. On the back side, however, we added a French drain in a gravel bed that empties out the back side of the domes. This re-engineering of the roof would move the majority of water away from the pit.

All of this amounted to quite a bit of underground roof infrastructure! We ended up working late into our final night before Jerry and Wyatt were to show up again. We just finished in time, and the next morning the excavators expertly buried everything!

At the end of 2018, then, we had a (mostly) finished roof that both fire and water could easily access, but which could resist their most deleterious effects. The Domes were fully open to and part of their environment (in the most literal and direct way possible), but could modulate the elemental flows that enveloped them.

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This theme of modulated openness and elemental coexistence continued in 2019, which saw an ambitious landscaping and infrastructure plan implemented. We dug a series of shallow trenches around the Domes and laid in a thin network of sprinkler pipes and fire sensors. In the future these will be connected to a water reservoir and microcontroller that will enable the Domes to automatically detect the presence and encroaching direction of wildfire and respond with targeted water to any part of them that may be in danger. I’ll write more about this in the future as the system is implemented.

 

 

Our small “kiosk” that houses our utilities and makes them accessible outside of the Domes, which miraculously survived the fires, was expanded and clad in Hardyboard, a cement and fiber board that resists fire and water.

We added a larger foundation pad to the kiosk, a similar pad for the solar PV array (to protect its lowest points, where fire had severely damaged solar panels and microinverters), round footings on the roof for our long-planned solar thermal array, a sidewalk in front of Dome 2, and a patio in front of Dome 1. The patio in particular, the result of weeks of the careful forming of curved boards, mirrors the curve of of the retaining wall above it, as well as the curve of the interior structure.

These elements embody the paradox of concrete: though it requires a fair amount of energy to produce and has the aesthetic reputation of of sterile, urban, anti-ecology, it is the most flexible, moldable, and fluid of all building materials. It is essentially (temporarily) liquid stone, and a little, properly formed, can do the job of much more invasive, brute-force materials. Much of its poor reputation is the result of its dramatic misuse in urban ecology. Ancient Roman architects knew how to use concrete organically; this art seems to have been largely forgotten.

Here, our patio acts as a bulwark against future fire and water, while also harmonizing the interior of the Domes with the larger ecosystem. Instead of modifying the surrounding land, we built an interface that transitions, with minimal incursion, between the space of shelter and the larger energetic system of which it is a part. This interface enables us to take the land and its historic ecology as it comes. This harmonizes with the larger architectural project of the Domes: to enable but softly mediate open exchange between the human and non-human, between interior and exterior, between technology and nature, between built and organic.

In the same way that the patio provides a minimal space of exchange that keeps fire and water out but plants and animals dwelling-with, the Domes are constructed to enable energy to pass in and out in various forms.

Our large south-facing windows are capable of letting enormous amounts of solar energy into the Domes. This is modulated via overhangs on the outside and automatic window shades on the inside. We designed the overhangs using a software tool that helped us calculate, at our exact latitude, how much light they would let it on any given time of any day of the year. All such questions involve weighing a number of factors, but we designed the overhangs (separately for the Dome 1 windows, door, and Dome 2 windows) so that they would maximize the amount of direct sunlight during the winter (when the sun is much lower in the sky) and minimize the amount of direct sunlight during the summer (when the sun is high). The shades inside (which will be the subject of a future post) then modulate what happens to that sunlight, either converting it to heat, allowing it through as visible light, or reflecting it back outside, depending on the season. In this way, the Domes are selectively permeable with the environment with respect to energy cycles, allowing them to be heated or cooled as an ecological process rather than as the marshaling of exogenous energy against the local ecology—standard HVAC systems.

Further energy is transported through the Domes in the medium of water, many hundreds of times more efficient than air. A simple, small pump circulates water from the interior of the domes through the roof and solar thermal array, where tubes concentrate light into heat, transferred to water that returns into the Domes, where it supplies all of the domestic hot water, as well as additional energy for heat in cold weather.

I finished the long-planned solar thermal array in December of 2019. Future posts will cover the creative wiring and plumbing required to enable and sustain these flows.

The Domes, in their relationship with their larger situated ecology, mediate energy, as well as concepts, opening themselves to larger flows but also transforming them in sometimes subtle and sometimes dramatic forms. This is, I hope, the right way to modulate the potentials of a particular ecosystem, intensifying some energies and diminishing others, while keeping those effects as local and minimal as possible. This is how a dwelling becomes both an integral part of an ecosystem, an extension beyond it, and a self-sustaining pocket within it. Rather than resistance to ecology, a participant and a modulating force. It can then open up new potentials of preservation, of protection, and thereby integration with an environment, through a mediation of energy, matter, and ideas.

Closure: Shotcreting the Domes

In the past three weeks our domes underwent a transformation from wire cage to metallic spaceship made of foam to one thick, continuous concrete wall. 115merge-1280x427_1 115merge-1280x427 The process was complex, the heat soared into the 100s, some work days lasted from daybreak until we stumbled back to the main house in the dark, and mistakes were made with serious consequences. Yet, for me, this was the most fun and rewarding stage of the project- especially the crazy three days when an extraordinary team taught us how to shotcrete (a special concrete blend that is shot from a giant nozzle; also a verb!).  Our last and longest visitor of the summer, Dan Steinhilber, brought the energy, hilarity, and high spirits we needed to push through the last steps of this first season of dome-building- we couldn’t have done it without him. Like all initiates, Dan cut his teeth on the neverending rebar- this time for the difficult passageway between the domes. 70 (1280x853) The next challenge was to convince rectangular sheets of foam to become dome-like. The foam creates a surface for the shotcrete, and will eventually be peeled off to leave only a concrete shell (then it will be repurposed as an insulating layer before we backfill around the entire structure with dirt). We developed techniques to measure, cut, and fit two overlapping layers of foam to every square (round?) inch of the structure.  The edges had to fit into the I-beams. It was hard to believe, at this initial stage, that our jagged cuts would ever form the slopes we desired. 60 (1280x853) The outer foam layer was covered in mylar to keep the shotcrete from sticking. This created a temporary spectacle that must have freaked out our nature-loving neighbors. Danny Pardini, our electrician who lives a mile up the road, was certain we would get a call from NAASA. We at least impressed our regular site visitors: a woodpecker, a chipmunk,  a wild turkey hen, and a sweet pair of geriatric pups. 72 (1280x853) 61edit (1280x853) 62 (1280x853) Our initial efforts at foaming left plenty of gaps. By the time we reached the second dome, these were negligible or had disappeared entirely. 76edit (1280x853) 67 (1280x853) The foam gave us a first imperfect glimpse of how our finished walls might someday look. 75edit (1280x853) 96edit After the foam panels were placed we used wood lath and wire to form the curves and tie it into the rebar grid. The hallway between the domes was especially difficult because the curves were tighter and there were many different planes meeting. IMG_0091 (1280x853) 115edit 80 (1280x853) 86edit (853x1280) We placed small squares of 1″ foam between the sheets and the rebar to create space for the shotcrete to fill. As we worked long past happy hour stabbing toothpicks to hold each one in place, we longingly nicknamed the indigestible- or more likely, toxic- chunks “cheese.” “Pass the cheese,” “its wire and cheese hour,” “you’re a cheese whiz,” and countless other stupid phrases ensued. 79edit Metal tape partially sealed the seams (but nothing wanted to stick to mylar in the hot sun and dust). My perfectionism was constantly jeopardized; I would learn in time that Dan was right to say “we are going for the gesture.” Still, at dawn on shotcrete day, the domes looked amazing. 98 (1280x853) 110edit While Dan and I were busy foaming, Zach was solving hundreds of other problems, from putting in a large portion of our electrical system, to sawing off front wall brace boards with buried screw heads, to plumbing waterlines and setting in drain pipes. While our electrician (Danny Pardini) and plumber (Tom Davis) have provided valuable advice and labor on our project, we are determined to learn and complete as much of the building process as possible- missteps included. Zach’s electrical wire sculpture: 93edit (853x1280) Still life with mistakes: still_life_with_mistakes Our tiny crew of three struggled to keep up with the flow of work especially these past weeks. We hugely appreciate that our parents have jumped in to spot ladders, wield an occasional crowbar, and generously provide delicious meals and a well-stocked tool shed- not to mention the stunning land on which we build and a share of the capital to make this project move. Here is our dad, Robert, helping out: 92edit (828x1280)   91 (1280x853) And my amazing mom, Ann: 89edit (1280x853) 97 (1280x853) 94edit (1280x853) Finally, SHOTCRETE arrived, in the expert hands of Oscar Duckworth the nozzleman. We had a very difficult time finding the right person to take on our project; the construction industry is completely saturated in California this summer and many places were only willing to take on our rural, highly unusual project for a large profit- if they could fit us into their schedule at all. (A big thanks to Phil at Delta Gunite for matching us with Oscar!) Chemist, educator, concrete sharp shooter, and blueberry farmer, Oscar is the kind of dynamic person we love to encounter on this project: someone who labors because he loves the process, wants to take on crazy challenges, and cares about the relationships he forms. He also understood our desire to be intensely involved and put us to work- hard. The finishing guys he brought on board, Dominic and Elliot Petrella with Ken Zari, were also passionate about shaping mud. This commitment to the craft especially mattered when the shit hit the fan- or more precisely, when the fan fixture crashed to the floor along with a good portion of the ceiling. We’ll get to that. A subluxation is a dysfunction in a joint or motion segment wherein the alignment, range of motion and physiological function are altered even though the connection between joint surfaces remains intact. lowest price viagra http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/fox/ The physicians buy cipla cialis suggest ED patients some safety guidelines to get the most affordable service provider in the market. Any man who is facing erectile dysfunction might fail to lowest cost cialis face proper erections whenever he is making love and a condition wherein he fails to make proper erections. But if your buy cialis online more feelings of anxiety are absolutely harmless. 114 (1280x853) Shotcrete has to be built up slowly in layers due to the weight of the material. Our final walls are four inches thick at the top, eight at the base. 99 (1280x853) In addition to the domes, we shot three fourteen-inch thick retaining walls to be flush with the front walls, all of which will later receive a stucco finish. The retaining wall forms were built and placed by the crew at Ron’s Quality Construction, with Damien Jones at the helm. 102edit (1280x853) 124edit (1280x853) 127 (1280x853) 120edit   126 (1280x853) The force of the concrete shooting from the hose is incredible. We watched Oscar bend his whole body into the task of controlling it- and then suddenly he thrust it into my hands and shouted over the roar of machinery, “its just like frosting a cake!” Zach and Dan each took a turn, too. 130edit (1280x853) 131edit (1280x853) 133edit As the layers rose, Oscar climbed aboard the 85-foot boom we rented, with Zach driving and running an air hose to blow loose rocks from the concrete mix. Dominic followed to smooth the surface with a trowel. 134edit (1280x853) IMG_0197 (1280x853) 152 (1280x853) Things were going really well on the second and supposedly final day. Dome 2 was encased in solid concrete. Oscar prevented cracking from the 106 degree heat by ordering chemical and fiber additives to slow the curing of the mixture. The last truck of the day, filled with 8 yards, had just pulled in. Oscar and Zach were up placing a layer of shotcrete on the very last uncovered section of Dome 1, when something went terribly wrong. I happened to capture the moment on camera, though I didn’t realize it until Oscar turned toward those of us watching from the ground and made a sharp cut in the air with his hand. 137edit (1280x853) As I ran to the front of the domes, I saw our boxes of tools and hardware covered in a thick layer of shotcrete rubble. The tube of my dad’s faithful shopvac was just peeking out from the pile (this photo was taken after the cleanup began). Then I saw the gaping hole in the roof. It was actually sort of beautiful, and we each spent a second wondering if we should have put in a stained glass window (nope, it would be buried in earth). Most likely a single wire tie broke, and because we did not reinforce the area adequately, the whole section failed. 139 (1280x853) 138edit We had to turn the concrete truck back to the plant and begin reckoning. Oscar and his crew stuck by us, cancelling personal and professional plans to stay on the extra day and help us get it right. Dominic busted ragged chunks of material off the rebar grid. It took us until dark to cut, fit, and massively reinforce new foam. Somehow, Dan had the energy to grill sweet corn and brats for the concrete-covered crew when we finally limped to the main house. It was an expensive and exhausting mishap, but far less so due to the uplifting attitude and ethics of our friends. 140edit 141edit (1280x853) We were ready for the concrete truck by 6 am on Day 3. It was a beautiful morning. The crew was unfazed. The only hole remaining was Dan, who was missed by all as he caught his flight home to DC. By the time he boarded at 11 am, the domes were covered and smooth. All that remained was cleanup and regular watering down of the slow-curing concrete.  Although some steps remain before Zach and I can return to teaching on the east coast – putting in the windows, adding some weatherproofing layers, and massive site cleanup- the shotcrete gave us a sense of closure for this first season of dome-building. 144 (1280x853) 149 (1280x853) 147 (1280x853) 154edit (1280x853) 150 (1280x853)              

Building, Thinking, Dwelling

As I simultaneously plan my move from Santa Barbara to Pittsburgh and get ready to build a retreat house with my sister in northern California, the notion of dwelling has been on my mind. What does it mean to dwell, to call a place “home”?

In a late essay, “Building, Dwelling,Thinking,” Martin Heidegger links dwelling to thought and building. To build, or to think, one must first dwell, which is to say inhabit a particular relationship with space:

“The nature of building is letting dwell. Building accomplishes its nature in the raising of locations by the joining of their spaces. Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build.” (Poetry, Language, Thought 157) Similarly, thought belongs to dwelling as an ordering of space.

I think this is right. To dwell is to inhabit a place, in body and mind: to be sheltered by it, to be sure, but also to mend it, modify it, shape it, explore it, contemplate it, meld with it. As Virginia Woolf famously proclaimed, every woman needs “a room of one’s own” to properly develop as a thinker and creator. Such a dwelling place affords privacy, or relative protection from the tumult of the world and the thoughts and demands of others. Shelter, in this sense, fosters independence and creativity by providing a break in the affective, material, and ideational flows of our culture, introducing stoppages that allow for mutations. Creativity.

This is not to say that thought develops in a vacuum; to dwell is to engage one’s surroundings and thus also to give up some forms of agency. Dwelling is a being-with. What all should be included in this circle of cohabitation? Physical structures, ideas, affects, animals of many sizes and types (including other humans), plants, pollen, textures, surfaces…

House-site-2

Near the build site.

There are many different possible relationships that one can form to one’s dwelling, and social relationships that can form within and around it. Nomadic peoples trace patterns on a landscape by moving through it; not the individual place or structure, but rather this larger map of habitation, constitutes the home. Nomadic living is also nomadic thinking. Likewise, farmers dwell in part by rethinking the land around them, narrowly circumscribing their resources and range to produce something new.

In the US, at least since the 1930s, the average home has grown steadily in size even as it has housed fewer people. In the 1940s it became a stagnant site of middle class consumption (occupied by a nuclear family, the basic Keynesian consumptive unit in Postwar America) which is being partially restructured today as a neoliberal site of self-improvement and flexible workspace (the home office).

Don t be afraid to sound viagra uk fun and witty all the time. Women can consume Gynecure capsules in taking care of generic cialis in australia their genital and reproductive health? They do, many of them are not under any kind of therapy. Previously, buy a drug for sexual disorder cheapest viagra professional was a real easy job getting a drivers license about 15 years ago. In order to hinder these possibilities, coming up or devising ways of keeping the brain less focused to realities of life but rather composed to samples of levitra click for source a different dimension of life can truly help minimize the entire overload of the brain that leads to stress. How houses are conceived, built, and dwelled in is determined in large part by the relative availability of energy. The postwar nuclear family dwelling was made possible not only by a particular ideology and economic system, but by the availability of inexpensive (for the consumer) energy. See John Perlin’s Let it Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy for a history of innovative solar programs, technologies, and building materials for the home that were more or less scrapped in the postwar period when vast housing tracks made with cheap, mass-produced, energy efficient materials became the norm. For developers, it made more sense to build large and cheap, and then make up the difference in energy requirements by slapping on complex HVAC equipment to heat and cool the homes in perpetuity. Dwelling in this mode meant being plugged in to a vast system of petroleum extraction, refinement, and burning, ensuring the necessary supply of gas and electricity in exchange for the perpetual flow of money back into utilities. This more or less remains the equation in the US today, despite dawning awareness of our global ecological crisis, economic hardship, and the increasingly high cost of burning post-peak oil, dirty coal, and dangerously difficult to capture natural gas.

Given these conditions, it may seem shocking that the majority of new houses are built for yesterday, not tomorrow. There is something conservative about dwelling, as if our large, empty houses and always-on temperature control will somehow stave off the destruction of the planet, ongoing outside. This is building and thinking cut off from dwelling.

view

One view from the build site.

With this in mind, my sister and I set out, a little over two years ago, to conceive of a house for the future. One that wouldn’t take energy for granted. One that would serve as a dwelling place in the fullest sense: a place to live in, live with, and think among. Our basic guidelines were that it must serve the future needs of others, at least 250 years into the future, must not rely upon petroleum-based energy, and must be a dwelling place that inspires creativity, not utilitarian grimness or hermetically sealed escapism. With these constraints in mind, we were forced to design far beyond our own needs, and our own lifetimes. Such a dwelling place must be tough to last so long, but it must also be supple, flexible in use, to remain capable of meeting the unknown.

In the end, after a long collaboration, we chose to build two half domes, constructed out of a shell of concrete (dome structures are the strongest possible from an engineering standpoint, and thus require far fewer materials than equivalent rectilinear structures) and mostly buried in the earth. Not wooden boards and siding and shingles to keep the elements out and the heat in, but soil and wild grasses. Building out of wood ensures horrifically poor energy efficiency. What you save (in environmental as well as monetary cost) in the production of materials you lose many times over during the lifetime of the building to petroleum energy production in order to keep it warm and cool. Our structure will require far less energy to maintain, as it will heat and cool itself. One large retaining wall, facing south, will gather through many windows the heat of the sun in the winter. In the summer, the house’s under-soil condition will keep it cool without air conditioning. When additional heat is needed, it will be generated from solar thermal collectors that will turn sunlight (even pale winter sunlight) into hot water, stored in a tank inside and distributed throughout a radiant floor to keep the structure warm. When there is no sun, a powerful electric water heater will make up the difference. A solar photovoltaic system will generate the electricity for such needs. Will all of these advanced techniques cost a fortune. No; this house will cost significantly less to build than a traditional structure.

Most importantly, this will be a space unlike any other. One half dome will have no “walls” at all; it will be a large Great Room for meeting, working, cooking, relaxing, and viewing the beautiful valley below our building site in the mountains of Mendocino County. A short passageway will connect to the second dome, which will provide the “room with a view”: private rooms to sleep, work, contemplate. Fewer flat walls, and almost no conventional ceilings, will provide a new sort of space to think in and with. What sort of thoughts will such a space generate? We cannot yet know.

We are building this as a retreat house, because it only seemed right to share this with a collective of individuals who want to partake in its construction and maintenance. No one person, at least for the foreseeable future, will monopolize this space. It will see a constant infusion of new dwellers, new purposes, and new ideas.

I will always maintain a dedicated page on this site to the house, which can be accessed here. I will also continue to blog about it as we build it (we start on the foundation next week, but the extended process will continue for at least another year) and learn to dwell within it. If you wish, you can join us.

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