My friend, Grum, once spoke of a plan to host a big party in a Scottish woodland in and around a series of yurts, which he wanted to build. His broader plans were to freight these all over to the states and rebuild them at the Burning Man festival. Having been shown a few pictures of various yurts I became curious, and over time have googled the idea a fair bit.
A yurt is a portable dwelling used for centuries by nomads in the steppes of central asia. People today can still be found living in these felt-covered, lattice-framed structures. Yurts can be simple and they can be grande (see my
yurt gallery for more). The transportability as a dwelling seems enticing to me (not that it'd be much use right now in Edinburgh!), and they are clearly hardy. Back on 1998-9 when I stayed in the French resort of Val d'Isere, I recall one saisonaire resided comfortably in one with a wood burning stove through the whole winter.
There's a lot of informative stuff out there, and I think even the
wikipedia entries are reliable. I found websites of a number of architects around the world constructing buildings out of wood, glass or stone around the principles of these original yurts, and I also discovered quite a few crafters renting (particularly at music festivals) and selling yurts commercially. But they're expensive to buy - £2000 minimum (although Grum is convinced you could
build one yourself for around £200), and even the most basic yurts appear to need a good couple of hours to put up or take down.
With so many of the events I've attended ending up wet and cold, though, a cavernous yurt-like space could come in handy as a chill-out space either side of your turn to race - and would be great to house the odd group gathering.
So, I've been researching how something cheaper, lighter, quicker to construct and deconstruct - but still as practical in terms of space and weather protection might be put together. I've still to put these ideas into practice yet, but here they are...
(click images to enlarge)