Walking Wounded
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2010 4:33 am
Sat Jan 15, 2011 3:28 pm
Shelter: Dual ring villages
What is a dual ring village?
Think of a strip mall or long apartment building, wrapped into a circle. Do it again - a doughnut inside a doughnut. Add gateways. Now you have a central park, two ring buildings / walls, a circular street between them. Add continuous balconies, verandas or alcoves for the upper level, and you have the basic idea. Top off the ring buildings with rooftop gardens, and you have the basic framework for 21st century prosperity.
The Dual Ring Village is an innovative solution to the problem of providing human habitat, faced with geometric population growth. Unlike the 90 degree grid of streets and sky high buildings, the dual rings are aligned on a hexagonal grid. Each dual ring village, by design, is an enclosed gated community.
This results in synergistic improvements to efficiency, durability, security and convenience.
http://www.ozmirage.org/anic/tiki-read_ ... rticleId=6
Rings and rings...
Why are we going in circles? Rings may be one of the ideal ways to live in a high population density environment. Unlike the rectilinear grid, the dual ring presents a model that provides parkland, pedestrian friendly promenades, and minimizing distance between homes and necessities.
And they also can be secure environments, with gated access to each ring.
Living in circles
Though many advocates of preparedness stress solo survival strategies, I am persuaded that we may have to institute a different plan of action. Instead of stalwart mini fortresses of solitude, we should consider fortified villages for our families, extended families, friends, and acquaintances.
Part of the problem, is that we've been carefully indoctrinated / socialized to be divisive, selfish, and uncompromising. Most families are fractured by generations, unable to cohabit. Isn't it true that we poke fun at adult children who live with their parents? How absurd are we!
In most of the world that honors family, it is more likely that several generations and their families live together, building prosperity and security for all blood kin.
In socialist America, we've been taught to substitute Big Brother as our benefactor. We now shunt our aged to warehouses, where they wither and die far from their kinfolk. True, part of the reason is that due to socialist overhead expenses, families cannot afford to spare adults to care for the old or the young, as did our ancestors just 100 years ago.
But let's change that - let's rethink the whole paradigm of consolidated population.
Ring Think
Unlike 90 degree "Manhattan" architecture, where everything is based on rectilinear divisions and shapes, ring architecture will focus on circles and closest packing (hexagonal) arrays.
There are quite a few benefits to going in circles. For one, a curved roadway imposes a natural limit on speeding. There's no need for twisty roads and cul-de-sacs to discourage speedsters. And a traffic circle (roundabout) reduces the need for stop-and-go intersections.
No Sky Needles
By various thought experiments, I realized that the multistory ring offers solutions to problems that plague super dense urban design. If you consider that skyscrapers are like needles, and roadways open to the sky are wasteful of surface and volume, you will get the message.
If you've ever lived in an inner city "high rise" with your view dominated by the side of your neighbor's "high rise", you can relate to the visual pollution you face.
The collapse of the World Trade Towers illustrate the dangers of needle architecture, where people become trapped by the very nature of the structure.
In contrast, the continuous ring is far less restrictive, offering escape routes up, down, and around the ring.
Mixed Use
The zoning practice of segregating "residential" from "non-residential" areas incurs a penalty on those who can't afford an automobile, nor have access to mass transit. Ring villages can easily accommodate mixed use development, with the ground level reserved for enterprise and public access, and reserving upper levels for apartments or small home offices.
The inherent design of a dual ring village provide an ideal central park within the inner ring. Separated from the circular roadway between the rings, the park is ideal for children, protected and secure.
The family friendly design is also efficient, since the ring villagers have easy access to the many enterprises, services, and activities located on the main level. Depending on size and preference, the ring village can host meeting halls, entertainment venues, light manufacturing, health care, shopping, skilled craftspeople, restaurants, bakeries, and even schools.
Human scale
If you've ever grimaced at strip malls and acres of parking lots that blight the landscape, you'll appreciate the environmentally friendly human scale of ring villages.
In cursory examination of multistory ring villages and cities, it's clear that the stacked walkways and balconies present a friendly environment for foot power, as well as wheeled human powered vehicles.
Frugal Engineering
A circle encloses the most with the least exposed surface area. Which means the cylindrical walls enclose more volume for less material. Apartments have minimal exposed surface area, saving on energy to keep comfortable.
A ring is also safer, spilling winds, instead of channeling the wind into a blast, as does a line of skyscrapers.
Curved walls are self supporting, and resist side forces better than flat walls. That makes them better survivors for earthquakes and hurricanes.
A continuous enclosure offers enhanced security, reducing or preventing unauthorized access. A ring village can be the ultimate gated community.
And if the exterior walls were made of a substantial barrier, such as 2 meters (6 ft) of rammed earth skinned with ferrocement, they'd be a formidable defense against storm surge, flash flooding, and windstorms. Imagine if New Orleans was built from ring villages - each village would have been a haven! No single breach of a ring wall would flood their neighbors.
Final thoughts
To better accommodate the growing population of our coming generations, we should plan for them. And a ring village design may represent one of the best solutions to provide the necessities, and the luxuries that make life good. Why not build to a new plan that provides nearby access to parkland, playgrounds, nature, urban retail, convenient delivery, and socializing space - as we promenade around the ring road.
MORE INFO:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ring_life/
http://www.ozmirage.org/anic/tiki-index ... ng+Village
Think of a strip mall or long apartment building, wrapped into a circle. Do it again - a doughnut inside a doughnut. Add gateways. Now you have a central park, two ring buildings / walls, a circular street between them. Add continuous balconies, verandas or alcoves for the upper level, and you have the basic idea. Top off the ring buildings with rooftop gardens, and you have the basic framework for 21st century prosperity.
The Dual Ring Village is an innovative solution to the problem of providing human habitat, faced with geometric population growth. Unlike the 90 degree grid of streets and sky high buildings, the dual rings are aligned on a hexagonal grid. Each dual ring village, by design, is an enclosed gated community.
This results in synergistic improvements to efficiency, durability, security and convenience.
http://www.ozmirage.org/anic/tiki-read_ ... rticleId=6
Rings and rings...
Why are we going in circles? Rings may be one of the ideal ways to live in a high population density environment. Unlike the rectilinear grid, the dual ring presents a model that provides parkland, pedestrian friendly promenades, and minimizing distance between homes and necessities.
And they also can be secure environments, with gated access to each ring.
Living in circles
Though many advocates of preparedness stress solo survival strategies, I am persuaded that we may have to institute a different plan of action. Instead of stalwart mini fortresses of solitude, we should consider fortified villages for our families, extended families, friends, and acquaintances.
Part of the problem, is that we've been carefully indoctrinated / socialized to be divisive, selfish, and uncompromising. Most families are fractured by generations, unable to cohabit. Isn't it true that we poke fun at adult children who live with their parents? How absurd are we!
In most of the world that honors family, it is more likely that several generations and their families live together, building prosperity and security for all blood kin.
In socialist America, we've been taught to substitute Big Brother as our benefactor. We now shunt our aged to warehouses, where they wither and die far from their kinfolk. True, part of the reason is that due to socialist overhead expenses, families cannot afford to spare adults to care for the old or the young, as did our ancestors just 100 years ago.
But let's change that - let's rethink the whole paradigm of consolidated population.
Ring Think
Unlike 90 degree "Manhattan" architecture, where everything is based on rectilinear divisions and shapes, ring architecture will focus on circles and closest packing (hexagonal) arrays.
There are quite a few benefits to going in circles. For one, a curved roadway imposes a natural limit on speeding. There's no need for twisty roads and cul-de-sacs to discourage speedsters. And a traffic circle (roundabout) reduces the need for stop-and-go intersections.
No Sky Needles
By various thought experiments, I realized that the multistory ring offers solutions to problems that plague super dense urban design. If you consider that skyscrapers are like needles, and roadways open to the sky are wasteful of surface and volume, you will get the message.
If you've ever lived in an inner city "high rise" with your view dominated by the side of your neighbor's "high rise", you can relate to the visual pollution you face.
The collapse of the World Trade Towers illustrate the dangers of needle architecture, where people become trapped by the very nature of the structure.
In contrast, the continuous ring is far less restrictive, offering escape routes up, down, and around the ring.
Mixed Use
The zoning practice of segregating "residential" from "non-residential" areas incurs a penalty on those who can't afford an automobile, nor have access to mass transit. Ring villages can easily accommodate mixed use development, with the ground level reserved for enterprise and public access, and reserving upper levels for apartments or small home offices.
The inherent design of a dual ring village provide an ideal central park within the inner ring. Separated from the circular roadway between the rings, the park is ideal for children, protected and secure.
The family friendly design is also efficient, since the ring villagers have easy access to the many enterprises, services, and activities located on the main level. Depending on size and preference, the ring village can host meeting halls, entertainment venues, light manufacturing, health care, shopping, skilled craftspeople, restaurants, bakeries, and even schools.
Human scale
If you've ever grimaced at strip malls and acres of parking lots that blight the landscape, you'll appreciate the environmentally friendly human scale of ring villages.
In cursory examination of multistory ring villages and cities, it's clear that the stacked walkways and balconies present a friendly environment for foot power, as well as wheeled human powered vehicles.
Frugal Engineering
A circle encloses the most with the least exposed surface area. Which means the cylindrical walls enclose more volume for less material. Apartments have minimal exposed surface area, saving on energy to keep comfortable.
A ring is also safer, spilling winds, instead of channeling the wind into a blast, as does a line of skyscrapers.
Curved walls are self supporting, and resist side forces better than flat walls. That makes them better survivors for earthquakes and hurricanes.
A continuous enclosure offers enhanced security, reducing or preventing unauthorized access. A ring village can be the ultimate gated community.
And if the exterior walls were made of a substantial barrier, such as 2 meters (6 ft) of rammed earth skinned with ferrocement, they'd be a formidable defense against storm surge, flash flooding, and windstorms. Imagine if New Orleans was built from ring villages - each village would have been a haven! No single breach of a ring wall would flood their neighbors.
Final thoughts
To better accommodate the growing population of our coming generations, we should plan for them. And a ring village design may represent one of the best solutions to provide the necessities, and the luxuries that make life good. Why not build to a new plan that provides nearby access to parkland, playgrounds, nature, urban retail, convenient delivery, and socializing space - as we promenade around the ring road.
MORE INFO:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ring_life/
http://www.ozmirage.org/anic/tiki-index ... ng+Village
