Kathy Tafel

Projects, Persuasions, Perambulations

Theory

With partners, I own land in a remote part of California. It has wild beauty, and some need of environmental restoration. Our first years there were spent in basic infrastructure such as water and road. To be there on a more regular basis, though, we needed to not spend hours setting up and tearing down a tent each time we visited. My partners built a yurt. I am building a house framed by shipping containers.

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Challenge

Create a livable structure that I make with mostly my labor, accomplishable in a remote location.

Considerations

Waste
Everything must be carried out or disposed of onsite. The less waste, the less impact.
Erosion
There is a winter stream 100 feet from the site. I did not want debris clogging a water source that feeds into endangered salmon habitat. I did not want to engineer any erosion control such as retaining walls.
Atmosphere
The temperature can go below freezing in winter and reach 115° in summer, with generally a 40-50° temperature swing during the day. I wanted to be as smart as possible about heating and cooling to use the fewest resources.
Expansion
I did not want to have a structure that I would outgrow and then need to upgrade. I wanted to do this only once because ultimately, I'm lazy. I also thought having space for guests to sleep so they didn't have to pitch a tent would be nice, too.
Time
Had the luxury of spending some months focusing on project, but wanted all future projects to be doable in a weekend between work.
Money
I did not want to spend more than you would on an RV, for two reasons. I wanted this solution to be repeatable by others who are not rich. Two, I wanted to conserve resources in order to have a lesser impact on getting materials onsite (less oil consumed) and general consumption (leave what I don't need for the future). 
Thought
I do not like correcting my mistakes. I'd rather not make mistakes in the first place. Mistakes waste energy, money, and resources. I would rather spend three weeks contemplating something that will take two days to do, if that makes the result near flawless.
Aesthetic
I wanted the house to be modern, but cozy. I like beautiful objects and great design, but did not want to feel like I live in a hotel. I wanted the house to feel like an individual made it.
Material
I wanted to reduce, reuse, recycle materials. While part of this has to do with onsite waste, I'm also referring in a larger sense to mitigating other people's waste.
Armageddon
There's only a 5-10% chance that we'll go to hell in a hand basket due to energy and water shortages, as well as climate change. I'd like the place to be self-reliant and off-the-grid for that possibility and on general principle.
Best
Practices
I wanted to figure out the best way of doing something, based on other people figuring stuff out. There's no need to reinvent the wheel in certain endeavors.
Progress
Conversely, I wanted to do something that hadn't been done before. If I was going to devote a fair amount of time to thinking, I'd prefer it to be somewhat original thought. Of course, it's not like we haven't been making shelter for tens of thousands of years. But I want my jet pack. I want a lot, it seems.

Inspiration

I have been mightily influenced by Christopher Alexander, whose work I became acquainted with when I published an interview with Will Wright on making The Sims. I read the whole Nature of Order series. It appealed to the computer enthusiast in me, as well as my aesthetic. I have also been influenced by the permaculture movement as a response to the climate change crisis. Several of my friends had taken courses. After some online investigation, there were two things I could not figure out how to do by myself: Make the thingamajig you use to make contour lines for a swale, and what the consistency of cob should be. So I took a course led by Starhawk, called Earth Activist Training. My takeaways from the course: Build soil and clean water at whatever level you can. Early on I also liked the idea of Earthships. While my solution is far afield from their idea, I've used some of the concepts.

What I picked up from Alexander is that you shouldn't foist a complete solution upon a situation. Rather, everyone can do something to fix the situation organically. It's all part of a learning process. And his patterns are not just geometrical objects, but rather the pattern ends up being the method you use to make things more lively. His golden rule of architecture - make things prettier, while taking your neighbor into account, and this makes the whole better. This notion was reinforced in me by reading up on permaculture. Many permaculturists also referred to his work.

I'm also inspired by my partners' work. They're about a year ahead of me, and I've learned a great deal from their methods and solutions.

Investigation

This project would not have been made possible without the work of others who propagated their ideas, from seventies hippies rediscovering passive solar design to the Fairfax County, Virginia building department publishing the code for decks. I've also checked out many, many books from the San Francisco Public library. I have visited many, many web sites from conspiracy theorists to This Old House. There is nothing really new under the sun. It does not cost an arm and a leg to learn how to do any of this. Curiosity and force of will does help.

Conclusion

I find much modern building to be ugly and lifeless. Alexander's work helped me put a finger on why. At the same time, the science fiction lover in me likes the mechanical and industrial. I don't think technology has to be a bad thing. But. Our modern lifestyle of overconsumption has led to serious problems with the environment. In the future, not only should we think about the effects of our technology on the environment, but we should develop something that fixes a past problem at the same time. I also believe that modern architecture can be uninspiring and depressing, and when one is depressed, one cannot produce great work. Fixing up architecture is a way of making people more psychologically able to solve problems.

So, this is my contribution to propagating solutions to problems. The ability to have a playground to put ideas into practice, for tangible study, pleases me greatly. Having said that, there is far more romance in the idea of a shipping container home than the actuality of building one. Working with metal is a pain. You need to know metal-working skills or someone who has them. It is dangerous to work with power tools of course, but angle grinders and welders are especially not for the faint of heart. I am of course happy with the result, but this has been harder work than I imagined, and I didn't do the hardest labor. And as far as project management goes, I would not try anything larger than this as a DIY hobby project.

More optimistically, I am happy if you use any of my ideas. Let me know if you do. I'm also happy to answer any questions, send me email using my user at domain as address. This is also a work in progress, I welcome constructive suggestions. If you want to republish this work, or use my ideas to generate income, however, contact me first.