Photo Analysis of Nature

 

A Look at Unusual Building Materials: Glass Bottles

 

There are many more materials that are used for building that most would not expect and find unusual. Everyday buildings are built from steel, wood, brick, concrete, etc. but what about ice, tires, or glass bottles? Whether it is to try and get away from the norm and build something incredible that will shock people, for aesthetic purposes, or even to be environmentally friendly by recycling the materials, there are so many different possibilities. This article will discuss the building of houses and other structures with glass bottles that not only makes for a cool twist on stained glass, but is also extremely environmentally friendly.

The very first bottle house is believed to have been built a little over 100 years ago in 1902 in Tonopah, Nevada by a man named William F. Peck (Brown, 2009) (Figure 1). Back then, regular building materials like lumber were extremely scarce in the dessert, but one thing that were not were saloons, 30 in the surrounding town (Ludacer, 2009),  and people drinking, making getting hold of bottles much simpler and cheaper than other more conventional building materials, and good thing because it took Peck 10,000 bottles to construct (Ludacer, 2009). Although this is the first recorded house made out of glass bottles, according to Wikipedia, “The use of empty vessels in construction dates back at least to ancient Rome, where many structures used empty amphorae embedded in concrete. This was not done for aesthetic reasons, but to lighten the load of upper levels of structures, and also to reduce concrete usage,” (Wikipedia, 2005) so really, this idea has been around for centuries to actually enhance the structure of the building which most people would not assume because glass is usually thought of as being fragile because it cracks and breaks so easily.

Construction of a bottle house can be as simple as “using a wood frame and concrete construction, [and] bottles…stacked up” (Mok, 2010) (Figure 2), or can be MUCH more complicated like using one million bottles to build the Thai temple Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew completely out of recycled bottles including the roof, washrooms, and crematorium (Gunzelman, 2008) (Figure 3). This idea of using bottles literally as bricks first came about in 1936 by Alfred Heineken, and designed by architect John Habraken as a “brick that holds beer”, Ludacer goes into more detail with a quote from inhabit.com by explaining that “Mr. Heineken’s idea came after a visit to the Caribbean where he saw two problems: beaches littered with bottles and a lack of affordable building materials. The WOBO became his vision to solve both the recycling and housing challenges that he had witnessed on the islands…[they] were meant to lay horizontally, interlock and layout in the same manner as ‘brick and mortar’ construction. Despite the success of the first “world bottle” project, the Heineken brewery didn’t support the WOBO and the idea stalled…Today, the shed at the Heineken estate and a wall made of WOBO at the Heineken Museum in Amsterdam are the only structures where the ‘beer brick’ was used.” (Ludacer, 2009). The Thai Temple interestingly enough, is built mostly from heinekin bottles as well although not built from these pre-engineered “beer bricks”, but it is built similarily with the bottles pressed up against each other almost interlocking (Figure 4).

According to Wikipedia, although most of the bottle houses vary, there is a basic successful construction method used. This method is explained in the article stating that “Although bottle walls can be constructed in many different ways, they are typically made on a foundation that is set into a trench in the earth to add stability to the wall. The trench is filled with a rubble of pea gravel and then filled in with cement… Bottle walls range one bottle to two bottles thick. Primitive mixture, such as cob or adobe can be used as mortar to bind the bottles… It is thickly spread on the previous layer of bottles followed by the next layer which is pressed into the mixture. Typically two fingers of separation are used as a means of spacing although any kind of spacing can be achieved” (Wikipedia, 2005). Basically, the method described here is not that much different from a basic construction using brick and mortar although according to Brown “construction tends to be a slow process as bottles must be properly spaced, stacked and set for stability” (Brown, 2009).

Building with glass bottles is actually a lot more common than I had originally thought it was. It is a great option for both recycling and getting rid of litter, as well as an interesting artistic expression using recycled materials. Bottles don’t only add an unusual touch to a building, but they also “make excellent building materials as they are a plentiful resource, keep their color over time, provide great indoor lighting and are generally easy to clean” (Brown, 2009), as well as “trap[ping] air to provide insulation rather than as opposed to losing heat and privacy (Mok, 2010).

 

Bibliography

Bottle wall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2007, March). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved October 23, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_wall

Brown, L. (2009, June 10). Building With Bottles - Earth911.com. Earth911.com - Find Where and How to Recycle. Retrieved October 23, 2012, from http://earth911.com/news/2009/06/10/building-with-bottles/

Gunzelmann, D. (2008, October 24). One Million Beer Bottles Later and it’s a Buddhist Temple | greenUPGRADER. greenUPGRADER | Sustainable products, ideas & DIYs to help you on the path to green living. Retrieved October 23, 2012, from http://greenupgrader.com/4262/one-million-beer-bottles-later-and-its-a-buddhist-temple/

Harris, M. (2008, May 1). Building with bottles | Unusual Life. Unusual Life. Retrieved October 23, 2012, from http://unusuallife.com/2008/05/01/building-with-bottles/

Ludacer, R. (2009, February 5). 8 Glass Bottle Houses | Box Vox. Graphic Design & Structural Design for Retail Packaging: Beach Packaging Design. Retrieved October 23, 2012, from http://www.beachpackagingdesign.com/wp/2009/02/glass-bottle-houses.html

Mok, K. (2010 October 9). Russian Woman Builds House of 5,000 Glass Bottles : TreeHugger. TreeHugger. Retrieved October 23, 2012, from http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/russian-woman-builds-house-of-5000-glass-bottles.html

 



Design Expo

 

Last Tuesday we all attended the Design Expo of West Texas located at the Merket Alumni Center. I had gone last year, and it was very cool, but this year topped it for sure. There were so many cool stations and vendors I barely knew where to begin.

 

 

 

These two pictures are from the very first station right when you walk in, they specialize in modern office furniture and have tons of cool inventions they showed us like a moving conference room wall setup so you can have tons of options for how to make presentations and meetings. The second picture is of one of the chairs they produce, the back may look a little strange but its actually extremely comfortable!

 

Another station we went to had this really awesome paint that was actually dry erase, making writing on the walls actually acceptable!

 

 

 

My favorite station of the day was the Architex table. They had all of these really modern and nice looking fabrics that were extremely durable (the guy said something like over 100,000 rubs) plus they were an alternative to vinyl and could wipe sharpie and other stains right off. My two favorites were a neutral with a really cool diamond geometric pattern, and a faux sude that was called show pony and it was really sparkly(which is exactly why I liked it). The man demonstrated a portion of their website where you could pick any type of furniture you wanted, pick from a selection of their fabrics and it would actually show you how the fabric would look on the piece of furniture, I thought that was genius and will definitely be using that for future products.

Last but not least, the man kept urging us to enter the raffle they had going on to win a $100 Visa gift card, I usually dont waste my time with these things because I literally NEVER win anything I enter but figured why not and entered. A few hours later I received this e-mail:

 

I had actually won! I think I was actually more excited about winning something, ANYTHING, than the actual prize itself but $100 extra dollars definitely wasnt a bad way to end my already awesome experience at the expo!

Material Applications on Campus

 

 

 

The purpose of this assignment was to go around campus and try to find examples of fabrics being used in 6 different ways:

-seating

-window covering

-wall covering

-panel systems

-floor covering

and -fiber based artwork

 

I immediately thought that the sub would be the pefect place to go because it has so many differnt elements and artwork in it and because it is so large. Lucky for me, I couldnt have been more correct and was able to find all of my examples quickly and in one place!

 

 

 

 

 

Here is an example of a fiber based wall covering. It is neither paint nor textured plaster but some sort of textured vinyl wall covering. The picture makes it hard to tell but it is actually very texturized and from far away looks a little like wood grain.

 

Fiber based artwork was the most challenging to find in my opinion, most of the artwork was either metal sculptures, or framed pictures, but I did see a ton of flags hung up and decided that would be a good thing to include, heres one of the examples of them being displayed.

 

Floor covering was definitely the easiest, although a good majority of tech campus has mostly tiled floors, theres a ton of sections in the SUB that is also carpet, above is the example that I came across.

 

Panel systems was a bit of a challenge along with the artwork. I kept trying to peek into offices to see if they had any above their desks, as well as in the music rooms for the acoustical panels but got strange looks and decided to put my efforts somewhere else. This is a 4 paneled announcement board located in the music room attached to the SUB.

 

Here is my example of window coverings. They are located in the actual eating area of the sub and provide different levels of shade when needed, you can't tell very well in the picture but they go all the way down to the floor which is nice when you have floor to ceiling glass.

 

 

Last but not least is my example of seating. Seating was also EXTREMELY easy to find because there is seating everywhere in the SUB.This is an example of one of the lounge chairs they have.

 

This project made me realize just how many different types of textiles are used in so many different kinds of ways not only around campus but really anywhere you go.