A vision that just won’t go away….

I live in Essex, NY., on the shores of Lake Champlain. For as long as I can remember I have been building, making, rigging things. I get an idea in my head, and I want to try build it ( never been good at drawing).  Only when I begin on a prototype and begin to see and feel the object in 3-D, do I get a sense if it will work on not.

As a kid I built a go-cart out of  long 2×10’s I found in the garage. I remember dripping wax from a burning candle on the 2×4 that the front axle attached to so I could steer this beast more easily with the clothesline steering. I also nailed a light piece of wood  (I used a big nail) to the side of platform as a brake. The first time I used it on a big hill, it broke right off.  Right then I realized that there was a big gap between what I thought might work, and what really worked.And that’s the way its been even since.

My latest project, the Sky High Shelters, is a big stretch for me. The tent structures are big with lots of wind exposure. The Sky Yurt has turned out to be a complex tension structure with a design intention to transfer loads in one part of the frame evenly throughout the structure. It also involves production of a numbers of similar parts, laminated beams, floor joists, connectors and cross braces. And I have to build enough for the complete structure, to see if the design and rough engineering will work.

Why a shelter sky high?  The idea for Sky High Shelters has been brewing since I lived in a tipi on the top of a hill studded with small pines in Cavendish, Vermont in the 1970′s. My brother John had a tipi one field over. I had an open-sided kitchen lean-to with an old wood stove for baking bread and […]

The vision – a shapeshifting village of nomadic artists and crafters. An open field,surrounded by trees. A small river just over the bank on one side of the field. Woods and mountains in the distance. Just after noon the first nomad arrives in a van with trailer in tow and begins to set up. Through the afternoon and into the early evening nomads […]  

Next – The Design Concept