Miles Flansburg wrote:Much better! It looks like there might even be variations from person to person, home to home ?
Certainly. There are features common in certain villages more than others, depending on the builders'
experience, training and preferences.
These houses require more labor and materials than just a simple, typical African roundhouse, so people with limited resources tend to live in houses with the simpler design. If you notice from the videos I posted, having this kind of traditional house seems to be a status symbol so they must be relatively quite a bit more expensive to build and maintain. Wealthier people also tend to build homes influenced by Western homes, with rectangular floor
plans, multiple attached rooms, porches, and corrugated sheet metal roofs.
Seems like this might work anywhere that it is hot and rainy.
I agree. I was wondering what, if any, adaptations would need to be made for a more temperate climate, with a cold winter as well as a hot summer. Perhaps a way to close off the high ceiling in the central area would be helpful during the cold season. A range of ceiling joists could be installed at about eight or nine feet high, with woven mats or some other lightweight ceiling material laid across them to hold heated air closer to the living space. Insulation could be placed over the top for more heat retention. Then, as the warm season approaches, these mats could be rolled up or removed to take advantage of the high ceiling's ability to allow heat to rise and escape the structure.
I owned a Tipi for years and there are similarities. Opening at ground level, inside liner or wall, creates a draft that cools the room. Cone shape. Neat
This design would be almost like a tipi within a tipi, wouldn't it? A Hypertipi!
That reminds me of a
video I once saw where there was a covered, tent-like structure surrounding a bed raised up off the ground, all within a yurt or a larger tent. Apparently it was quite warm in the bed just from body heat alone, even when the outside temperature was extremely cold.