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Sep 18 2011
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3D Models, Building, Cabins, Off-Grid Tech, Security, Shelter

Little Footprint Big Forest – Container Cabin Contest

A friend just emailed me this great design contest that just happened here in King County. The parks department wants low impact over night structures that are easy to install and maintain for guests in their parks. Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam was  judge!

The challenge is to design an overnight structure re-using a surplus cargo container, which can be staged anywhere in King County Parks’ 26,000 acres of open space, and more specifically, on our forested lands that have minimal roads or utilities.

While I’ve questioned containers being use for building before, it mostly came down to it being more expensive. However in this situation the counties goals fit the containers perfectly. Strong secure structures that can be built off site, have minimal maintenance and have a low impact on the site. I bet they’ll be using an off-road fork lift to place these at site without roads like they mention.

Check out the entries below, they are really creative especially giving the counties requirements. Some very cool ideas to be gleaned from these designs. Hit the link below to read more on King counties page.

 

 

Congratulations to Hybrid Architecture for their REtain design, which was selected as the winning design of the Little Footprint Big Forest contest and was announced today at the Built Green Conference.

What do 26,000 acres of open space, public recreation and a cargo container have in common?

Conservation. Sustainability. Public Recreation. Aesthetics. Forest Stewardship.

The Situation
King County Parks is looking to balance the natural and built environments to create truly inspirational accommodations that:

* use salvaged and locally-sourced materials
* are economically achievable, both for us to build and maintain and for the public to use
* can be replicated across our 26,000 acre system

Read more about Little Foot Print Big Forrest Shipping Container Contest

The Challenge
King County Parks and the GreenTools Program have teamed up to create a competition that we hope will inspire designers to integrate the principles of conservation, sustainability, public recreation, aesthetics and forest stewardship.

The challenge is to design an overnight structure re-using a surplus cargo container, which can be staged anywhere in King County Parks’ 26,000 acres of open space, and more specifically, on our forested lands that have minimal roads or utilities.

All submittals must be received by August 22, 2011 by 4:30 pm PST.

The Judges

* Dow Constantine – King County Executive
* Stone Gossard – Sustainability advocate and Pearl Jam rhythm guitarist
* Kevin Brown – Division Director, King County Parks
* Art Wolfe – Wildlife and Landscape Photographer
* Eric Corey Freed – Principal, organicArchitect
* Kim Munizza – Principal, Mithun
* Aaron Adelstein – Executive Director, Built Green
* Chris Toher – Executive Vice President and General Manager, Skanska
* Bill Schwartz – Manager, Small Projects – Capital Improvement Program, King County Parks
* Andy Wappler – Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Puget Sound Energy
* YOU! Enter to win a chance to join our all-star judges panel.

Here are my favorite entries:

 

Jun 28 2011
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3D Models, Building, Our Cabin Posts, Video

Building Cabin Deck

Nate and I went up to the cabin aka Camp Taint to build a deck last weekend. I had a rough plan in mind, I drew it with Google Sketchup. I suck at drawing and find it’s much easier for me to transfer my thoughts to a usable plan in 3d with Sketchup. It’s also great for getting an exact materials list. I draw the framing members at the correct size and spacing, every part is to scale and it’s great way to discuss the plan with others.

porch and deck plan

porch and deck plan

We wanted to incorporate some log posts from our property for the porch roof supports and Nate came up with the idea of using the logs to support a section of the front of the deck. We had built one free standing log structure before this using rebar and pier blocks, we learned a few things from it.

Video Below – View blog post to watch deck building video!

We had cut down 12 trees the year before but our property is so sloped that getting them out is hard. And it didn’t help we forgot a rope… Well we went down to the little town 7 miles away and bought the only rope they had, lead line for a crab pot… Let’s give it a try pulling the logs out with the truck. If you have ever handled green wood you know it’s HEAVY. These 9″ 14′ long logs weighed about 200 lbs each. Anyway they pulled out fine and I peeled them with my vintage draw knife I got off ebay.

draw knife

draw knife

The plan was too just frame the deck but we got so much done and were going back to the lumber store to get one more board anyway so we decided to buy the decking too. Earlier I had planned on using my dads’ old cedar decking but it hadn’t been taken off yet and it would have meant 120 extra miles of hauling alot of wood. We worked until midnight on Saturday and got it done. It turned out great and it very strong, no wobbles at all.

May 17 2011
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3D Models, Building, Cabins, Shelter

Thinking about Cabin deck or porch

So I’ve been thinking about putting a covered deck on the cabin for a while now. We have a unique set of design requirements though, which makes it a bit more complicated than I’d like. The porch or deck needs to be self supported and not attached to the cabin. This is because we according to code this is a shed and we want to play by the rules. Also I want to use logs from our land to support the roof. The deck would be about an inch away from the door of the cabin.

I drew the deck in Google Sketchup to better visualize it. The plan would be to pour small cement footings with a metal bracket to attach the vertical logs.

The dimensions are 8′ x 12′ in this sketch, 2×6′s for deck support and 2×4 rafters 16″ on center.

Any thoughts or concerns you guys would have with this design?

Jan 06 2011
2 Comments
3D Models, Cabins, Security

Secure Shipping Container Cabin

Secure Shipping Container Cabin Design

Secure Shipping Container Cabin Design

Just found this cool project blog at Tincancabin.com. Steve is making a very secure cabin using 3 shipping containers. His goal is obviously the security of his remote cabin while he’s away. I really wish we had something like this after 2 break-ins, yes I said 2! Maybe more on that later, but I digress. Shipping containers really make sense here and he has a unique idea arranging the containers so they are intact and there are no windows when the doors are shut. The Cabin has a gable roof which is another interesting idea and makes it much more cabin like.

Secure shipping container cabin doors shut

Container doors shut

Container cabin interior roof

Container cabin interior

Steve’s really good at Google Sketchup too so follow his blog and check out his interior designs of his cabin. It’s very spacious and well thought out for it’s use even though it’s only 450 square feet. Read more about the initial design here: http://www.tincancabin.com/?p=17.

Keep up the great work Steve!

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Sep 24 2010
5 Comments
3D Models, Our Cabin Posts

3D Interior Cabin floor Plan & Maple Counter Top

So I made these scale 3D floor plans in Sketch-up last winter when I was planning the cabin and just now remembered I made them. I was trying to figure out exactly what would fit in 200 square feet. Sketch-up had this huge library of models that were the actual sizes of things like that wood stove that looks just like ours and the futon which I think we need another of. So it’s great for planning, especially for a visual person like myself. Things have changed slightly since I made these models. We’ve put the door on the opposite side and may not be putting the wood stove in there… Read more on that below

Maple Slab with live edge

Maple Slab with live edge will be our counter top

Also that is a 8′ counter top which my friend Kevin just got us a solid piece of 2″ thick maple to use. It’s even go “Live edges” for that rustic look that we badly need after our conventional building practices so far. He works at a sawmill in the Skagit Valley so he went out in the yard and selected this log months ago, putting my name on it. And they just cut it and ran it through the sander once. Thanks Kevin!

I want to put a wood stove in but since we’re not supposed to heat a shed we’re worried that “the MAN” might spot our shinny stainless steel smoke stack from the road. So maybe we’ll do a removable stack through the back wall? Not sure if that will work. If it doesn’t we’ll do propane heat like a Big Buddy heater or the 35,000 BTU space heater Nate has, though it’s overkill.

Anyone have any ideas how to do a removable smoke stack?

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Jun 27 2010
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3D Models, Cabins, Off-Grid Tech

Montana Sleeping Pavilion Design

Montana Sleeping Pavilion Design by Karl T. Ulrich

http://baubilt.com/?cat=47

A cool project I stumbled upon on the internet. Karl has some good content on his blog and is very good at Sketchup, much better than me. I especially like how he pasted his model into the actual environment.

Karl is creating a “sleeping deck” at his wife’s family’s place in northwest Montana. They have a three-bedroom cabin there, but mostly people like to sleep outside on the deck. The weather is usually perfect in July and August, and remarkably there are essentially no biting insects. The problem is that they are running out of deck space and the few times it rains, there is a mad scramble into the cabin. So hes been working with the family to design a pavilion, which would include a large deck and a sheltered area.

Montana Sleeping Pavilion Design

Montana Sleeping Pavilion Design in SketchUp

Composting toilet and shower

Composting toilet, sink and shower

Mar 27 2010
4 Comments
3D Models, Building, Cabins, Security

Secure Cabin Design – Folding Roof

Folding cabin roof model

Cabin shown on hill

secure cabin idea - openHere’s my version of a simple yet secure cabin. The idea came from Casey Brown an architect in Australia. His is all metal but a more doable version in my eyes would be made of wood.

To make it more secure for the off season or when ever you aren’t there there aren’t any window except on the front face where the swing down door covers.

French doors would be nice since they’re mostly windows and when they are open the deck would be an extension of the living space. This 3d drawing is 10×12 and the person in the drawing (he comes with SketchUp) is 6′ tall.

The swing down door would be sheathed in correlated metal and operated by a ratcheting boat winch reached through a padlocked window in the back of the structure. A couple of pulleys would be needed and the lifting beam should be a 4×6″ or so. I’m not sure how the structure of the door should be made but some welded 2×2″ steel frame work would be best to keep it strong and light. The drawing shows the cable split to support both edges because that’s what Casey did but this door would be much lighter than his so if the structure is stiff enough one 5/16″ cable could take the weight.

One important safety item that may be considered is some kind of brace when the “door” is in the up position. I think a few people commented on this. Possibly some swing down braces from the sides could lock in position. So you and yours don’t get decapitated if the cable fails!

Here is Casey Brown’s amazing structure called “Permanent Camping”. It’s made of steel beams with copper cladding and has a rain water collection system off the roof. Transported to the remote hillside in Australia from it’s building spot in Sydney. The folding roofs provide protection from high fire danger in the bush.

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Mar 04 2010
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3D Models, Our Cabin Posts

Cabin Foundation 3d Drawing

Update: I’ve added our 4×8′ bump out to the foundation model to show how it will tie in. We’re going to use existing 4x8x8′ beams from the yurt foundation.

The brown posts will be 4×4 pressure treated and the rest of the lumber won’t be. I made the girders or beams red in the model just so they would show up. The main beam/girders will be 14′ long 2×10′s doubled with 1/2″ plywood in the center to make them a full 4″ and give them strength. This will save us about $100 in lumber costs. I’m thinking about using treated but most people on the forums on CountryPlans.com don’t and as long as it’s keep dry by the platform I hope it will be ok.

The floor joist’s will be 12′ long 2x6s. This design will give me exactly 200 square feet of platform.

Old drawings:

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Feb 11 2010
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3D Models, Our Cabin Posts

Planning Off-Grid-Cabin Design in 3D

So I found my self nerding out learning Google Sketchup the other day. The goal was to figure out how best to orient the cabin on our small terrace of level land on our larger sloped property. The green terrain in the photo isn’t exactly right but it’s close enough from memory and about as good as I could draw it.

Check it out:

Here’s one (left) that shows the outhouse. This is the real position of the existing outhouse that came with the property. The previous owner installed a nice composting toilet in it. Actually it came with a video! That’s how “high tech” this thing is but I digress.

Below is a drawing of the cabin kit we ordered. It’s going to be an small totally off the grid cabin that uses rain water collection for water. It’s 200 square feet exactly plus a large loft that’s not counted as square footage. The basic dimensions are 12′ x 16′ with a 4′ x 8′ bump out added on. I was attracted to the 2 intersecting roof lines of this kit that I think makes it look a little less shed like :)

We wanted to avoid costly permits and other problems they entail by building small. A Micro-Cabin is what people are calling them these days and they seem to be getting popular if blogs like The Tiny House Blog are any indication. Also this is going to be a rustic cabin for us, not a 2nd home. It’s a place to sleep and hang out on rainy days. Most of the time we’ll be cooking outside and hanging outside. We are building near the Olympic National Rainforest so it does rain quite a bit. Hence my plan to add the covered porches. Weather can change really fast there and usually in a bad way.

Owls Clover Cabin Kit from Penny Pincher Barns

The plans come from Penny Pincher Barns also of Washington State. It’s called the Owl’s Clover I found them on the internet and they had a deal that worked for us. They sell the plans and all the materials delivered to your site for one low price. They have a lot of buildings to choose from and even several to get around local building requirements like this one. I don’t know if I would call it a kit since there is some cutting but everything is included…?? So maybe it is a cabin kit.

Here it is Photoshoped on top of our old yurt platform.

This is the view from the other side, taken standing in front of the outhouse. This log shelter we built, may have to be rebuilt… more on that later.

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