The Hexayurt is a refugee shelter system based on work done at the Rocky Mountain Institute. It uses an approach based on "autonomous building" to provide not just a shelter, but a comprehensive family support unit which includes drinking water purification, composting toilets, fuel-efficient stoves and solar electric lighting. Other systems can be added in a modular fashion. Here is a one page summary (pdf). Vinay Gupta invented the basic shape for classic hexayurts and a number of variations, and placed it in the Public Domain. This allows others to develop the original idea further. This wiki page, and associated pages, are the repository for hexayurt do-it-yourself building data, and primarily reference building techniques
Is this for real?
Yes. Both the American Red Cross and the US Department of Defense have examined the Hexayurt system in detail and found that it has considerable merit and utility. I hope that we will see it in use by international agencies within two years.
The best place to get started is to read the slides from the presentation Vinay Gupta gave at the Pentagon in December 2006: Pentagon Presentation (pdf) - 20 pages, not much text, and the best summary of the system we currently have online.
Yes, the hexayurt is designed to be accessible to anyone. You can make your own, many people do for camping events. The do-it-yourself knowledge repository is at hexayurt playa because of the hexayurt's overwhelming popularity at the Burning Man Arts Festival.
Shelter: $200 - $500+ per single family unit depending on size, climate and use duration
Infrastructure Package: around $100 per unit
Units
Here are a variety of designs so you can pick the best for your needs. See the Master List here for more stats. See the Design Principles page to see how different designs came to be and to learn more about the design family of Geoyurts.
Hexayurt plywood shows research on more permanent material choices.
Assembly
Units take a team of three people around an hour to assemble. They are assembled using a 6" wide, 600+lb bidirectional filament tape, and anchored to the ground like tents. No heavy lifting, ladders or scaffolding are required. Follow this link Assembly for more detailed information. Camp danger Hexayurt hinge technique has a wealth of information for the joints. Schematics shows some pictures of different designs.
Manufacture
Any wood shop or packaging factory can be taught to manufacture units in an afternoon. In emergencies, basic units can be manufactured on site with hand tools in half an hour each (only six cuts are required for each unit.) Rapid deployment covers how you could quickly make units on site as well as some shipping information and details.
Infrastructure Package
Read more about the Spectrum of infrastructure to familiarize yourself with the various layers of infrastructure. On this Infrastructure page you can find details of hexayurt specific developments.
1 Wood Gasification Stove (burns wood for cooking, 3x more efficient than clay stoves)
2 Cold Cathode / LED Flashlights (energy efficient area lighting)
1 Composting Toilet (model depends on location and we are still researching options)
1 Water Purifier (type depends on location)
Rechargeable AA batteries (for stove, lights, radios etc), for use in solar charging stations.
Modifications
Once you've made a Hexayurt, here are additions to make.
Hexayurts are very popular at Burning Man, the Hexayurt playa and Hexayurt playa checklist pages contain all the information the burners have gathered over the years testing hexayurts.
Hexayurts for Mass evacuation. An organized page summarizing the use of hexayurts in disaster situations. It covers both situations, whether people need to be housed on location or hosted at a new location.
Funding proposal to move the Hexayurt project forwards
Global Impact
More than a billion people do not really have good housing. It's not that they do not want a good place to live but they often simply cannot find one they can afford. They do not have access to modern building materials, and local materials are often really unsuited for building. Europeans used to thatch their roofs and now we mostly use tiles and shingles because we prefer the results. We are probably not alone in this preference.
Everybody needs to be warm, dry and well-fed. If you go to Burning Man and the Hexayurt is a good shelter for you, consider helping us develop and test the Hexayurt until it is polished and ready to be made available globally. It's a free / open source project, and with your help perhaps it can become the Linux of housing.
Vinay Gupta
Availability
All intellectual property associated with this project is public domain. Contact Us if you want to get more involved in the project, or to find Events near you.
