[TheForge] Speaking of shops...

[Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer]

The burlap reinforced concrete i heard was in Berkeley where somebody 
famous tossed the wet bags in an old washingmachine full of cement 
slurry and made walls by draping the bags over parallel stretched wires.
Now a days you'd toss in a bunch of acrylic or latex additive.
Phoebe came up with a method that was neat. She took "blue board" the 
blue, foil faced insulating foam and sliced it into beveled tapers that 
fit together to make walls and roof of a small building. She then taped 
the seams with aluminum tape to seal it . She used the scraps to build 
up areas for shape and pinned them in place with old welding rods and 
misc. Then she stretched aviary wire over the whole thing and pressed it 
down to conform with the shape. The next coat was fiberglass reinforced 
cement..about 1/2 " thick ( 3 sizes of sand, 3 to 1 to cement, glass 
fiber and acrylic additive instead of most of the water...troweled the 
heck out of it, scratched the surface. 2 days later i could walk on it.
Last, she did a color and texture coat using metal oxide colorants. 
Looks just like the rocks around it.  But really it could look like 
anything you wished.
Add steel reinforced concrete ribs and you could develop quite a span.
Then there are the burlap sacks dipped in molten sulphur for walls and 
roofing. Strong, cheap, water and even acid proof ...and flammable . 
Gotta plaster it.

Woolley wrote:
>> Anyhow, I was wondering whether such a building would be strong enough 
>> to serve as a form for poured concrete construction.  Put up the 
>> building and, say, spray gunite all over it to perhaps a 12" depth, 
>> perhaps even with a rebar mesh halfway in.
>>
>> I am inclined to think it would not be strong enough to hold up the wet 
>> concrete, but I don't really know.  Any ideas?  It would make for one 
>> hell of a strong building.  Spray insulation onto the inner surfaces and 
>>   it would be pretty much nicer in the cold weather.  I could even 
>> envision an earth sheltering scheme for such construction.
>>   
> 
> Ever been to Fonthill In Doylestown PA?  Henry Chapman Mercer poured 
> concrete into burlap to form some of those walls etc. Not sure what they 
> used to hold it together or strengthen it.
> 
> http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Fonthill.html
> 
> 
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