I’m architect Earl Parson. After 20 years in the Los Angeles architectural custom home industry, I started asking myself why things couldn’t be done differently. What if, instead of hiring an architect for a (very expensive) full service to design a new home, and paying a general contractor a big markup to build it, there were a way for people to get simple, well designed modern home plans to construct themselves?
What if the designs were open source, so people could easily customize them and make them their own?
What if the designs were flexible, so one concept could be built as a tiny house and later seamlessly expanded as a family’s needs grew?
What if there were a lot of people out there who would build their own home if the process were streamlined for them, and a few simple tools and resources were offered to help them along the way?
This is my vision for Clever Moderns. A community of people who love simple, good design, supporting one another, living the Clever Modern life.
We’re building a prototype!
On ten acres in Northern Arizona, we’re building The Quompound: our own group of experimental Quonset hut houses. In the spirit of sharing our newfound Quonset construction knowledge, our monthly newsletter brings all our challenges, anecdotes, wins, and lessons learned straight to your inbox. Once completed, we’re sharing our Quonset houses with the world as Grand Canyon vacation rentals. Want to test drive a Quonset House? Come give one of ours a spin!
Clever Moderns.com
Thanks again to reader J. Bowie who sent me this suggestion. We love suggested topics as you can tell.
Thanks for that, Grayfox. The more I hear people talk about burying shipping containers the more I”m starting to dislike them. The idea of the containers being used in such a manner, not the people. LOL! If we”re not really careful they COULD end up being more of a tomb than anything else. Seems to be more trouble than it”s worth. We may be trying to put the proverbial square peg in the round hole. What I”m hearing is that shipping containers are designed for one thing and that is NOT being buried. They just will not bear the static pressure on the sides and the top. Then let”s make a left turn and think about a completely different solution if we do want to bury some kind of a metal container to be safe against emp. What about burying something like a metal Quonset hut? They already have a curved top which should be strong enough to support a reasonable amount of dirt piled on top of it. They”re already designed as a habitat which a shipping container isn”t. And as far as I know Quonset huts can be built in sections. And those sections should be easy enough to seal against moisture and emp. Let me know what you guys think.
I think there’s good potential for underground quonset housing. It’s certainly more practical than burying shipping containers (very bad idea). However, I’ve heard most quonset hut manufacturers will not sell to anyone who intends to bury the structure even though we know it’s been safely done before. It all comes down to safe design. Get professional advice if you’re not professionally trained in this area. See examples below:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dectiri/MTQuonst.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~dectiri/OuterSpace/CulvrtHs.htm
https://naturalbuildingblog.siterubix.com/earth-sheltered-reinforced-quonset-buildings/
Thanks for featuring my site! You have such an awesome collection of resources here, I’m honored to be in great company :-D