Inside View of Ancient Shelter

Cutaway view of ancient shelter
Cutaway view of ancient shelter

I probably won’t be recommending Pinterest very much since they’ve made it much harder to view their site for non-members. Maybe it’s just me because I’ve spent so many hours scouring their site, but I’m practically blocked. Anyway, I found this interesting drawing on a shelter page at Pinterest and thought I’d share.

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Huts on Ekopedia

A hut in the Parc des Pyrénées (France), made of stone, with a vegetal roof (living roof).
A hut in the Parc des Pyrénées (France), made of stone, with a vegetal roof (living roof).

“A hut is a temporary shelter built with materials found nearby. It is generally built manually in a natural environment with local materials : branches, leaves, logs, bushes, etc. … Less commonly, it can also be made of materials such as metal (iron), cloth or plastic (sheeting), and be located in an unnatural area such as a backyard or on the water (stilts).

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Emergency Shelter for Kashmir Flood Victims

You can make homemade bales with a hand press if bales aren’t available.
You can make homemade bales with a hand press if bales aren’t available.

A recent flood in Kashmir has displaced millions. Aid workers have been blocked from the area, but hopefully this information on emergency straw bale shelters will be helpful.

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Simple Shelters Book Review

Simple Shelters – Tents, Tipis, Yurts, Domes and Other Ancient Homes
Simple Shelters – Tents, Tipis, Yurts, Domes and Other Ancient Homes

“Rarely do you get such a small book that feels much bigger than it really is. This diminutive book, (measuring a mere 6 by 5 inches) with the title ‘Simple Shelters’, is anything but small in content and the shelters are anything but simple. In fact I am thinking of shrinking the size of my coffee table so it does not look out of place.

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Underground Cities

Underground cities of Cappadocia, Turkey
Underground cities of Cappadocia, Turkey

“One of the characteristics of Cappadocia is having plenty of underground cities. It’s known that there are more than a hundred underground settlements in the region and many of them are not open for visits. The underground cities, which are guessed to be used since the Bronze Age, used to be settlements mostly in Byzantine period, doubtless. In this period, increasing invasions forced local residents to build underground cities for protection and religious purposes.

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Collapsible woven refugee shelters powered by the sun

Collapsible woven refugee shelters by designer Abeer Seikaly
Collapsible woven refugee shelters by designer Abeer Seikaly

“More than 40 million people worldwide have been displaced from their homes and left to find shelter in strange lands. Maybe they find a tarp, or a tent, but their quality of life almost always remains dismal. To close this gap in need, Jordanian-Canadian architect and designer Abeer Seikaly designed a new kind of shelter. One that allows refugees to rebuild their lives with dignity.

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