Communikits
(1976-2018)
What are "Communikits"?
Communikits are self-sufficiency systems in kit form for assembly by small communities.
Communikits will come in two forms:
One for emergency relief in disasters and one for establishing sustainable community self-sufficiency systems. Below is a World Shelters dome kit as a potential model of what Disaster Relief Communikits would be like.
World Shelters geodesic domes
Both forms will be as "kits" with pre-fabricated parts for assembly on site. Sometimes Communikits are software systems, or instructional videos, or blueprints for assembling needed items out of local materials.
Using ecologically sound technologies communikits would be systems for raising nutritious organic foods, building inexpensive yet sturdy, comfortable living and working spaces, setting up renewable local energy sources, setting up water systems and sewage treatment systems, community transportation systems. Eventually Communikits would include kit-forms for assembling community vehicles that use renewable low cost energy sources, for local community mfg of household appliances, communications equipment, computers, clothing, basic medical treatment centers, everything needed for a village or town community to function without relying on outside aid.
Communikits would be toolkits for producing everything necessary for small communities anywhere in the world to survive disasters and achieve a high level of self-sufficiency.
There would be urban communikits specially designed for urban environments. There would be rural communikits designed for rural communities anywhere. Manufacture and distribution of these kits would be funded by governments and community aid groups that support economic development for all impoverished communities.
Manufacture of Communikits would become a source of income for these same communities once their basic self-sufficiency systems are established. Communikits would become known as the highest quality tools and systems made. The Lifeline Lottery operation proceeds pay for mfg. and distribution of Communikits to non-paying clients in need.
The idea behind this is that the basics to community and individual health and well-being should become universally available to all people on earth.
Robotics development will be high on the list of Communikit R&D. Robotics are needed to eliminate repetitious grunge work now done by human beings so that they have the time and energy for projects that further their self-development and realization of each person's potential.
Communikits for disaster relief and community self-sufficiency
* Communikits
Community Self-Sufficiency Kits for setting up basic community service facilities for 3rd World nations and/or Disaster Area Relief efforts.
Cottage Kits, Cabin Kits, commercial building kits, all kinds of community service building kits, school kits, medical clinic kits, etc.
* Communikit R&D Teams
There will be a need for scoping out local conditions at each disaster or humanitarian aid community site. Local resource inventory to see if needed items can be produced locally. Each community site will have its own economic ecology needs. Communikit item standardization will be necessary for quick emergency relief response but for long term community sustainability, Communikit R&D teams will be needed.
Other ideas for Communikits..
* "Down-Home" Kits
Insulated Tents made like thin sleeping bags sewn together to form tent walls. These Down Homes could have made a difference in saving lives in the Central Asia earthquake and the recent one in China.
* Compost Cabin
The cabin's basic shape can be any of the existing single room configurations. Large house dimensions can be obtained by joining room units together. The only modification of design needed to change any single room cabin or house into a compost cabin is the in the structure of the lower walls and the method of insulating the upper walls and roof.
The lower walls are expanded to make compost bins four feet wide and four feet high with the top inside quarter of the bins forming the interior bottom walls of the cabin. Above the compost bin walls the regular walls are kept hollow forming a clear 4 o 6 inch clear air passage in the walls that allows escaping warm air rising off the composting material to circulate through the upper walls to the roof (which is also hollow) and from there out through an exhaust vent.
Here's how the design becomes nearly energy self-sufficient with practically no cost for heating. In the Fall, leaves, grass clippings, green hay, are gathered together and put into the compost bin walls of the cabin. Within the compost bin walls decomposition of the green vegetable matter begins and through this process heat is generated (up to 100 degrees) and radiates outward.
The outside walls of the compost bins are insulated with reflective material so that the compost heat is reflected inward. The green compost doesn't have a disagreeable odor and there are abundant sources for it in the Fall season. Green compost heats the cabin in the Fall, Winter and Spring. As temperatures rise in the Spring and Summer, compost material can be removed from the bins.
In Summer, the empty compost wall bins and hollow upper walls help keep the cabin interior cool by circulating cool air from underneath the through the compost bins and upper walls creating another temperature barrier to the outside. Additional cooling may be obtained by placing open water filled containers inside the compost bin walls. Air rising from underneath the cabin would be further cooled by circulating over these water filled cans as it travels upward to the roof and out the vent. As Summer changes into Fall the cycle is repeated.
The advantages of this type of heating and cooling design over conventional ones including solar heating are these: Simplicity of design. No advanced technology needed. No need for a south-facing home site. No need to worry about the number of sunlit days thus making this house design ideal for most temperate climates which receive heavy cloud cover during the winter months.
Alternative Building techniques
* Sandbag construction over aluminum Quonset-type shell
sandbags piled against sides of metal building.
The sandbags insulate the building and with vegetation cover, provide a pleasing nestled in the ground home.
* Sandcastle construction method:
Recycled plastic or organic foam filled concrete that is pumped up to a high spout to be poured out over a house frame made of re-bar and wire mesh to produce a finished Ferro-cement structure. The technique is like one made sandcastles as a kid by pouring liquid sand to build up the castle structure. It produces a dripped candle look and if the concrete were colored with concrete paint the effect would be quite beautiful.
* Antonio Gaudi
The man can teach us a lot about creative architectural design. Also, non-industrialized tribal architecture holds some absolutely amazing designs.
* Living panels of greenery for building walls, especially south-facing walls which if bare add unnecessary heat to the air. Pretty, easy to care for, oxygen-producing walls.
* "Stiktite" balls: foam core balls with rod hooks coming out of them so that they will stick together like burrs and can be stacked up to form walls needed for home construction. The stiktite balls are then covered with cement to form ferro-cement reinforced walls.
* Vertical Gardens
* Greenhouse A-frame house design
* Sandbag construction
* Chip-crete:
Using wood chips mixed with cement like paper-crete, wood chips being highly abundant cheap material in our forested area. I made an experimental sawdust mixture model but found sawdust dries out the concrete but wood chips do not.
* 3-D Printed "Bigloos":
Aerated concrete (pumice-like) printed to make Bigloos, flood, fire, tornado, hurricane, earthquake-proof, tsunami proof homes. See the Bigloo Village page.
