Shelter

How people have built shelter from what their place gives — snow, turf, earth, stone, reed, bamboo, hide — taught the way Lloyd Kahn's Shelter taught it: with drawings. TRADITIONS: sixty-four buildings, from the iglu to the tulou, each drawn in section to scale beside a 6 ft figure, with its builders named, why it works in its climate, how it is built, the numbers (imperial first, each with its source), and links to go further. TECHNIQUES: the fifteen passive moves those buildings are made of — thermal mass, orientation and the overhang, cross and stack ventilation, evaporative cooling and more — each with a diagram, the physics, and its math set out with every term defined. LESSONS: eleven paths through both, each ending in a studio exercise. Two benches: MASS & LAG shows what a wall of any material and thickness does to a day's heat; A CLIMATE LIKE YOURS ranks the traditions and the techniques against any site's weather. Runs in your browser; no account.