1. 

   Craig and Jennifer from Seattle write responses to 7 questions.

    

1. What did you think of when you saw the Flock House? (Its design, a memory, how you would change it, a feeling you had about it?

Transitional, adaptable

I thought of a play structure – fun and exploration.

2. Would you like to spend time in a Flock House? Spend the night?

Yes

Yes

3. How can a Flock House be equipped with its own source of water, energy and waste collection? Gardens to grow food and herbs?

Water = rain & containment system, Energy = pedal wheel/bike for creating electricity, Waste = Huma-Nure, Garden = Green Wall

Rain collection systems could be used as well as solar panels. Portable gardens could be installed and moved to take advantage of changing light sources.

4. If you were on a Flock House design team, what recycled building materials would you suggest?

Clear plastic clamshell = variety of sizes and closure designs.

Recycled plastics – plastic bags & water bottles, tires and rubber could be used as other building materials

5. What could you contribute to a design and building team? (Skills, knowledge, experience, interest)

Skills = outdoors experience – cooking

Not much! Sewing skills! and an interest to learn from others.

6. Now there are only a few Houses in a tiny global Flock. Imagine if hundreds migrated to one place, and set up for several weeks. Would you want to be there?

No – would become a place of community reliance – seems to go against the need for /nature of Flock House.

Yes, but probably for a more limited time.

7. What role might the Flock House idea play in addressing population displacement and suffering? (Such as: Drought, Scarcity, Famine, Armed attack and property damage, Disruptions or absence of utilities such as electricity, communications, sanitation, and water?) 

Adaptability to current situation/need

The portability of the Flock House would make it ideal in these situations – moving to better climates, food sources, more secure/safe areas and would make repairing the houses with any available materials so that the structures of those houses may change as needs and circumstances change.

Mary Nichols, draws and writes while waiting for Roger and her twin granddaughters.

Mary arrived from work in downtown Omaha. She had time to write her ideas in the 7 Questions and draw a pull able cart design for a Flock House.

The Flock House reminded her “of dice – rolling to any place or direction.” Spending time in a Flock House is a “Maybe,” because “I need a certain degree of comfort and would need to feel safe.”

To be self sustainable, “A house like a gypsy caravan could collect rain water and have roof top garden and manual/bicycle type wheels with energy collector like a battery.” Recycled building materials are “Roofing, metal sheeting, fiberglass – use anything available.”

Mary Nichols – Envisions a hard back on the cart that could raise up for added protection and to guide water collection.

Mary modeled her drawing after the gypsy cart. She envisions,”small caravans designed in a way that they could come together and form a community, larger form that allows greater safety from elements.  Maybe like pieces of a pie. The very center could be where resources are shared.” For greater safety, they “could raise up a hard back screen…so that all together they form a tornado/wind resistant dome.”

Twins arrive to draw in NYC Flock House

Lily and Aislinn, age 4, climb up and settle into drawing their Flock House.

Aislinn, Age 4 – Flock House drawing is sphere on platform, like the NYC Flock House. Wood and cloth are in code by color. If you look carefully in the blue base, you will see the floor and pillows.

Lilly, age 4 – Flock House Drawing on pedestal with free form shapes like the wooden forms surrounding the Flock House platform.

Roger’s idea.

A To-Go box Flock House.  Made of styrofoam, you fold a sheet in half, then fold a second sheet in half and overlap the sheets.  Add more sheets, folded in half and overlapped. The overlap establishes strength. The overlapped forms can grow in any direction forming walls and vaulted ceilings. We can try this as an art project during the Palimpsest days at Flock House Omaha – Old Market, August 6 – 16.

A group of gifted students from Nebraska City traveled to the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. They visited the Flock House Omaha Project gallery, envisioned a Flock House expressing their ideas and made drawings.

Sarah – Modular unit with solar panels, cut out vents, windows, and removable side panels to connect to other family units.

Angelica – Tent-Ish Flock House, fabric walls, doors and windows, support rods, foldable tile floor. Folds up for easy travel.

Thomas – Features triangular base, wooden deck, glass walls, green fabric wood, and flag pole.

NIck Z and Nick N – Design process moves from 2 folded square pyramids, to an expanding sphere stabilized with wood supports and latches. A conceptual Flock House shows bump out.

Trey – “Hot-Air-House”

Unknown – Hexagon design develops vertical space for plants, storage, seating. Lights hanging above.

Lilly, Age 11 – Outside Flock House design is 8 ft wide and 16 ft high. Schema shows solar panels, windows and door. Inside, a recliner combines sleeping and sitting. A mini fridge is run on solar power.

Lilly – Upstairs Bathroom with sink details of drain and faucet.

Zachary – Flock House Porta-Potty

Quentin – raised Flock House on stilts with ladder. double walled with technical details (no schema.)

Unknown – Propelled Flock House with communications, food, temperature control. External solar panels and satellite dish. An unknown student said a Flock House should be “a Teepee.” Inside, “it could have a water cooler.”

Unknown – Triangular house with round door.

Unknown – Schema showing shingles and floor plan of triangular house.

Unknown – Outside rectangular house with schema showing two floors with upper for sleeping, stairs at entry and outside area.

Unknown – By placing a person inside the structure as a reference, the designer shows “How big it is.” A ladder allows movement up and down.

Kailey – Solar panels outside and electric socket inside.

Destiny – Mobility of Flock House reflected in propellers.

Alexa – Diagram with notation icons and either an elevation or perspective drawing of a Flock House structure. Alexa’s comments on 7 Question form: Flock House “should have solid walls and no cracks.” It should be made of “wood.”

Jedidiah – Complex diagram of Flock House with possible communications active above.

Isaac – Raised Flock House

Designed by unidentified visitors to Bemis Center, their construction uses paper, scissors and tape set out  in the NYC Flock House. All visitors can enter this flock house and design a Flock House, or work at adjacent tables.

Updated July 28, 2014

Model A – This construction might support a flexible solar panel structure. They could be positioned for solar collecting and lowered for washing.

Model A – Solar panels might fold beneath a cover for safety during thunder storms.

Model B – Suggests Flock House aesthetics integrated into flexible materials.

Model B – Side view

Model B – This position suggests an elaborate door.

These models point toward the sculptural and adjustable potential of Flock House as an idea.

This model and a sketch completed by an unknown person.

Sketch with model above.

Gideon: Flock House Model

Gideon, Flock House model with floor and wall extensions.

Unknown: Complex layered Mode

Tyler and Cammy Booth at the NYC Flock House design table.

Floating Flock House

Accompanied by Kammy Booth, Tyler draws A floating Flock House. His work informed by his Eagle Scout study. His design reflects his scout camping experience. It includes a “Trap for rain fly outside”, “three shelves,” a “removable hammock,” “clothes line,” plant containers, “Potty with waste bucket,” “camp stove,” “catch bucket to store water,” and “water turbine” as energy source for a light bulb.

Tyler’s Floating Flock House

Recycled materials he would use include: “heavy net materials, buckets, fence post, reclaimed wood, and bot motor propeller.” On a design team, his contributions are “camping and wilderness survival” skills.

Tyler is not attracted to a Flock House gathering. “No, I wouldn’t want to be around lots of people.”

A Flock House idea might address population displacement.  “It would be a back up plan. It would help with populations in 3rd world countries.”

Kelly Klepfer drawing in NYC Flock House on exhibit in Flock House Omaha Project at Bemis Center – Old Market

On seeing the NYC Flock House, Kelly associates to “adventure – childikeness – backyard Glory Days – Playhouse.” She would like to spend time there, and spend the night. To equip the Flock House, Kelly suggests “Solar energy or wind energy harnessing – composting or off site waste disposal – reusing, repurposing pot or portable gardens in little pots, Etc or foraging if smart enough about food/wild food to do so.

Recycled materials Kelly suggests: “billboards, waste from building sites, Removed matter from deconstruction areas – using everything that’s found.”

In a design team, Kelly brings “interest, skills as writer and photographer, knowledge and experience.”

In addressing population and suffering, “Community can help / teach / supply. A Flock neighbor could have skills combined with someone else’s knowledge that would result in huge things. A communal sort of situation where everyone has a specific job that suits them or fits them and benefits everyone.” The opposite of “bureaucracy, which kills creativity.”

Kelly and I agree to meet on Friday to take photos of landscapes that could be background for drawings of scenes of Flock Houses in use to bring nature into the urban context.

Kelly Klepfer, drawing shows padded doors to storage units that fold down as mattress at night.

Kelly’s Flock House incorporates a strong covering of canvas or billboard material, storage pop outs, and comfortable sleeping support.

Tonight, the Summer 2014 issue of edible OMAHA magazine released at City Sprouts in Omaha. In a feature article, Where Art Meets Food, Dwayne Brown, architect and artist. describes the Flock House project.

Photographs by Cynthia Gehrie

Cover, Summer 2014, edible OMAHA magazine

“Big Top Tent” like shape

Seeing the NYC Flock House, Lizzy Davis wrote, “I thought of a raft, a weightless structure that is meant to always move. I believe the focus on the individual, the temporary nature of the project, and the focus on creator, undermines the environmental aspect by creating a space for those who already have a space.” Lizzy adds, “In a sustainable environment, I would think that the space should function as a necessity and for multiple persons/be in a place of permanence.”

Staying in a Flock House “would make an interesting substitute from a tent to a cabin. I would like to spend several days working in one.” Lizzy lists several ways to equip a Flock House with necessities. “Human powered machines (like the idea of a crank flashlight). As for water, it would almost be impossible to collect enough water from rain, which makes it entirely dependent on an existing water source.”

Recycled materials might be “used furniture, recycled/old clothes, melted down recycled aluminum.” “As an animator, I could provide video models of the finished product, as well as help with sewing and wood shop skills for cutting large materials.”

If Flock Houses migrated to a place, Lizzy says “No-” to attending. “- at least not without a plan. I would need to help set up a waste removal system, a schedule to have everyone rotate “chores”, and make sure not to disturb the area around the group.”

To the role of Flock House as response to disaster, Lizzy writes, “A flock house seems like a good idea in underdeveloped and overpopulated areas. For instance, the Gaza Strip, where thousands lack citizenship and are targets of hatred through violence. These houses would show 1) how little it takes to provide comfort and 2) shelter from terrible conditions these people live in.”

Lizzie Davis, “Big Top Tent” like shape

Details in the drawing focus on

Water capture: plastic liner for rooftop capture. Inside the structure a plastic hose carries water along structural supports to a basin for water storage.

The big tent structure supported with aluminum rods.

The octagonal base of recycled wood/plastic, 6 inches off the ground.

Recycled fabric sides, curtains at entry and recycled plastic holes in the roof.