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Live Architecture — Grow Your Own Home
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:16 AM
from the make-like-a-tree-and-get-outta-here dept.
from the make-like-a-tree-and-get-outta-here dept.
Ostracus writes to share a new take on the word "treehouse." Engineers and plant scientists from Tel Aviv have taken the application of tree shaping to the next level, designing everything from streetlamps to houses. "A home built from trees, the researchers said, would be a natural storm protector. 'After earthquakes and after tsunamis the only structures that still survive are trees,' said Yaniv Naftaly, director of operations at Plantware, a company founded in 2002. Naftaly told LiveScience the same sturdiness should apply to tree-made homes. Eshel and TAU colleague Yoav Waisel are working with Plantware to commercialize the leafy designs. The team found that certain tree species grown aeroponically (in air instead of soil and water) have roots that don't harden. Once the malleable, so-called soft roots grow long enough in the lab, they are molded around metal frames in the shape of a playground or park bench."
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Submission: Live architecture: Grow your own home by Anonymous Coward
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Tree houses ... (Score:5, Funny)
Last time I checked (Score:3, Funny)
I didn't have long pointy ears or hairy feet. The only trees that will be used for MY house are ones that are cut down and milled into high-grade timbers.
Leave the tree and hill homes to the Elves and Hobbits.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Vulcans don't have hairy feet.
Oh wait.
Re:Last time I checked (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't have long pointy ears or hairy feet.
But you do now?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
>Leave the tree and hill homes to the Elves and Hobbits.
Which is were genetic engineering comes in handy.
Re: (Score:2)
C'mon, sing it with me, you know you want to:
"e-e-e-e-E-EEE-Ewoks!"
Keeping warm (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Moya (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that you Moya?
A plug for my favorite author (Score:3, Informative)
Jack Vance : "The Houses of Iszm" and "Slaves of the Klau". Both feature grown houses.
Myst (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:From the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Using pieces of (dead) wood to build something it's ok, but using the entire (living) tree is just insane.
I can imagine the news: Skyscraper made of Sequoia falls and kills hundreds due termite colony.
Re:From the article (Score:5, Insightful)
If you grown a structure, then dig it up, then put it back the root system is going to be fairly fragile for some relatively (in terms of the classical building trades) long time. It just doesn't strike me as very practical for very much. Perhaps some edge conditions or smaller things. You would need to combine this with some genetic engineering for really fast growth in order for this technology to be generally useful.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Fairly obvious he was more thinking along the lines of:
1) Find empty/forest map on map. ... for 20 years.
2) Plant your town of 20 years.
3)
4) Sell homes in your new nature town.
5) Profit!
Of course no one will move the trees, you plant them on location and wait, won't work that great for one small yard spot in the middle of London or NY but would work for a new area somewhere else.
Re:From the article (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
It's entirely possible (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless they have created some industrial strength Miracle Grow, this is going to remain in the realm of park benches, custom picnic tables and cheesy 3D graphics programs.
So it'll take a long time. Didn't stop Konstantin Kirsch from planting tree domes [treedome.com] several years back. The oldest video on that page dates to 2001, and it'll be years yet before the walls he's woven out of separate trees grow together enough to form a solid surface. But it's entirely feasible. All it takes is a green thumb and lots of patience.
Mind you, it'd be cool if we had some way to accelerate the process, but that'd be tough.
Parent
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for the link. Apparently this tree shaping business reaches back to the 16th century at least.
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/20/foer.php [cabinetmagazine.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Well, there's always Gibberellin [annualreviews.org]. I bought a quantity of that stuff from Edmund Scientific back in the seventies, and grew some giantass vegetables. Of course, they weren't safe to eat, but as an experiment it was pretty cool.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to say that we'll have a solution to that particular problem anytime soon, but technology advances in unexpected ways all the time. For all anyone knows we're just a simple, "Hmm... that's interesting..." away from being able to rapidly accelerate the growth process of organisms or genetically engineer a tree that makes this easy to accomplish.
We had science fiction writers describing fascinating spectacles that many thought were impossible only mere decades before we'd figured out how to actually do so
Survive Earthquakes and Tsunamis: yes... But (Score:4, Interesting)
what about forest fires?
Re: (Score:2)
One of the ways you can tell how long ago and how high an unrecorded tsunami was is by looking at tree regrowth patterns.
Perfect for my great grand children... (Score:4, Insightful)
Trees don't grow on... Well, yes they do, but Rome wasn't built in one day either.
Would be nice, but it's too slow for any of us now living to use it.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Trees don't grow on... Well, yes they do, but Rome wasn't built in one day either.
Would be nice, but it's too slow for any of us now living to use it.
We'll gene splice them so that they can very quickly when fed on a high nutrient liquid like animal blood.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure , but that's part of the problems to . If you cut out pieces of the tree to make your home , there's a good chance the tree will try to regrow the empty space.
So , slowly your house will get smaller , unless you cut it regulary.
Re: (Score:2)
Trees only grow out. You only have to worry about your house getting smaller if you formed it by fusing a ring of trees together. If you hollow out a single tree, you're fine.
You may have to trim the doors and windows, though.
New form of art / craft (Score:3, Interesting)
So , slowly your house will get smaller , unless you cut it regulary.
Congratulation, Sir !
You thus just invented the new craft of "Macro-Bonzais" !
Re: (Score:2)
That's vertical growth. But how far does the cambium layer move over that time? Thickness is what you need for home construction. It's much more important than height: hypothetically it might be possible to form cambium with a thin layer of wood into an appropriate shape, supply it with nutrients, and have a tree of any shape.
Unfortunately, the hardwoods that happen to be good for support also happen to be the slower growers.
Dreaming (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What is wood made out of ? Trees.
What do termites eat ? Wood.
How do you get rid of termites ? Poison.
What does poison do to living things ? Kills them.
What is a tree ? A living thing.
What happens to old limbs and roots of trees ? they rot.
How do I replace a rotted window sill, or roof branch ?
How do I get rid of pests that take up residence in my tree with me ?
I can repair and reconfigure a traditionally built home, I can't reconfigure the
Re: (Score:2)
Structural stability of man made design? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Trees withstand strong winds because they have a rather small drag due to their profile, and because they "sway" in the wind rather than breaking. As soon as you modify them to the shape of a house, and grow them around immovable steel structures, I believe you're going to lose those benefits.
Hobbits?! (Score:3, Informative)
FTA: "Tolkien's hobbits would feel right at home in new dwellings made out of living tree roots and designed to protect inhabitants from earthquakes."
Wut? I'm no expert in Tolkein, but don't hobbits live underground?
I can see it now... (Score:5, Funny)
No longer would we have to call Dutch Elm Disease a disease, we can just call it "Urban Renewal".
Lothlorien! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Next item on the agenda; immortality.
Sir, this is your lucky day. My company is investing in immortality research and metaphysical energy sources. Currently we are in need of beta testers for our new mystical immortality devices.
Please visit our website http://immortalityrings.com/ [immortalityrings.com] and we'll make you a deal.
(Note: Immortality Rings(R) is a registered trademark of Sauron Enterprises, Inc.)
Yeah, so? (Score:2, Insightful)
"After earthquakes and after tsunamis the only structures that still survive are trees,"
Surely that's because of their shape and the leeway they have - being simply bendy poles. Once you shape them into buildings, you drastically increase their drag and reduce the leeway they have. It's not the fact that they are natural that makes them survive tsunami and earthquakes, it's their shape, so when you change their shape, you get rid of those beneficial properties.
This just seems like one of those "it mu
Damn straight and thank you-- (Score:4, Funny)
Finally- the last comment.
Hmm-- let's see- trees remain after storms... so that's great!
-- so lets change trees, so they aren't treelike, but houselike
but still trees! so they will stay! perfect!
what a bunch of f**knuts
Parent
The Fab Tree Hab (Score:2)
Quote [technologyreview.com]: "which might take a few years in tropical climates and several decades in more temperate locations".
CC.
Trees are strong because... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you could build a house as strong as a tree can be, if you wanted to pay for it. Instead of a concrete slab covering the ground with a few straps holding the house to the slab, you could have a deeply rooted system in the ground and it would be pretty sturdy. Skyscrapers do this.
"After earthquakes and after tsunamis..." (Score:3, Insightful)
...that still survive are trees" might be true. But usually not the case after hurricane.
Also, if the tree get sick or infected, it might be very hard to treat. Just days before in Hong Kong, a heavily infected tree fell down, one pedestrian was killed.
Re: (Score:2)
not to mention the fact that high humidity present in bathrooms and caused by severe temperature differences could exacerbate this.
And the next thing... (Score:2)
Actually, both of those projects can be done in a shorter time frame, but are probably better for the beginning of spring, rather than the end of summer. (Although the latter will be done again 9/19/08 in San Francsico).
*with apologies to websites in case of slashdotting.
Hey, they could also go the DNA way.. (Score:2)
False Logic (Score:2)
The reason trees survive tsunamis is because they are extremely dense, having a very low volume. Once you shape it into a house, it will no longer survive such severe forces.
But earthquakes? Living in CA, I can tell you first hand that you stay the hell away from trees during an earthquake. No matter how strong the tree may be, it's exerting a lot of angular force on the soil, and any weakening of the soil will result
Not necessarily (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily. Trees only grow by, well,growing new layers, outwards. That's why you can count the rings and all that. The old wood doesn't change shape or anything. (Though it might rot.) A lot of it in the centre is even dead already.
It's basically like living in a brick house where periodically you add a new layer of bricks to the outside walls. It eventually gets to be on hell of a bunker, but the rooms haven't changed at all.
If you prevent the inner surface from rotting, the rooms in the tree wouldn't grow too. Your walls would just get a little thicker each year.
Or I guess you could periodically shave a thin layer of wood from the inside, keeping the walls at a constant thickness, but having your rooms grow together with the tree. Frankly it isn't an unsolvable problem even then. Just put anything which needs pipes (kitchen sink, bathroom, etc) or wires (AC sockets, TV cable, etc) in the centre, so they don't need to be moved when you enlarge the rooms by 1mm.
But even that is probably over-thinking it, since it assumes an actual house in a tree. All these guys have done, is mould some soft roots into park benches and the like. And their houses, from what I understand, would basically be a layer of roots bent around some panels done out of something else.
Frankly, it's not that huge a progress. We've already known how to bend wood in any imaginable shape. See the curved Roman shield (scutum) for an example that's over 2000 years old.
I don't see many fundamental advantages in doing the same thing out of roots, as opposed to bending planks of wood. Especially since we're talking soft roots, as opposed to wooden ones. It's, almost by definition, a softer and less resistent material than wood.
Parent