YURTS ... NEW

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In the spring of 1964, the first complete example of the new yurt design was built at the John Woolman School in Grass Valley, California. It differed from the Mongolian yurt by having a wall that sloped outward at the top and a roof structure that eliminated the heavy, wooden, central ring of the traditional dwelling. This sloped wall gave increased rigidity and strength to the structure, a back rest in the interior and a feeling of greater spaciousness. The dwelling was covered with translucent material allowing the skeleton to be patterned against the sky. A madrone tree shaded the yurt and the shadows of the leaves playing on the roof gave it the appearance of a Japanese painting.

The response of students and others who came in contact with the structure was exciting, More than half the student body volunteered to help build it. The pleasure shown by those who took part made me realize that this was an approach to learning that had great potential.

At this point the yurt was a spacious tent with a complex skeleton of new design. It had not yet solved the problem of providing a simple, inexpensive, permanent dwelling. These problems, without solution, accompanied me on my travels for about a year. Then one day while hiking in Sweden, it occur red to me that—to make a solid walled structure on the yurt plan—it was only necessary to increase the width of each wall and roof member until it overlapped its neighbor. Thus we had a structure that united skin and skeleton. This meant that the interior and exterior wall was erected as one eliminating the skeleton and the perishable tent skin of the past. By cutting the roof boards diagonally, little waste was incurred in making tapered elements.

Upon returning from Sweden we built one of these structures (with a sod roof, in the spring of 1966 in Plaistow, New Hampshire. It is a pleasant dwelling and solved a number of technical problems nicely. However, it was still not simple enough for unskilled people to construct. The problem of simplifying the yurt was taking a lot of time, when suddenly, the next step came clear.

The new yurt design would be based on another geometric concept. Instead of having an hyperbolic-paraboloid curve in its walls, as did all other yurts up until this time, the structure would be conic. It would appear as an immense water bucket with its members tongue and grooved together. The roof would be the same in principle, but a much flatter core

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