An interesting shelter idea not yet fully functional from rain and high winds, but has enormous potential for super-cheap living areas.

When you think of papier-mâché, school art projects and carnival floats may come to mind, but a team of architects has used it to create something a bit more ambitious. The team mixed strips of recycled paper and non-toxic glue to create pair of prototype shelters in rural Texas.

Each shelter measures roughly 20 × 8 ft (6 × 2.4 m), and was made using around 200 liters (50 gal) of non-toxic glue and 270 lb (122 kg) of recycled paper. The team reckons it’s probably one the world’s largest self-supporting papier-mâché structures and the construction process will be familiar to anyone who has experimented with with the stuff before.

“The process of construction started with the digging of two mirrored, convexo-concave holes, each 4.5 ft ,” explains i/thee. “These holes were then cast with multiple layers of an organic, papier-mâché mixture consisting of various recycled papers and non-toxic glues. Next, the casts were removed from their respective holes and flipped over to form duplicate, bulbous, paper shells, measuring 4 mm thick and spanning over 20 ft . Finally, the shells were each moved on top of the adjacent formwork, letting the inverted form of one hole become a paraboloid cap to the other that encloses the structure. Thus, a 4.5 ft hole becomes a 9 ft tall interior space.”

https://newatlas.com/architecture/papier-mache-house-agg-hab/

PermeateFree said:

An interesting shelter idea not yet fully functional from rain and high winds, but has enormous potential for super-cheap living areas.

When you think of papier-mâché, school art projects and carnival floats may come to mind, but a team of architects has used it to create something a bit more ambitious. The team mixed strips of recycled paper and non-toxic glue to create pair of prototype shelters in rural Texas.

Each shelter measures roughly 20 × 8 ft (6 × 2.4 m), and was made using around 200 liters (50 gal) of non-toxic glue and 270 lb (122 kg) of recycled paper. The team reckons it’s probably one the world’s largest self-supporting papier-mâché structures and the construction process will be familiar to anyone who has experimented with with the stuff before.

“The process of construction started with the digging of two mirrored, convexo-concave holes, each 4.5 ft ,” explains i/thee. “These holes were then cast with multiple layers of an organic, papier-mâché mixture consisting of various recycled papers and non-toxic glues. Next, the casts were removed from their respective holes and flipped over to form duplicate, bulbous, paper shells, measuring 4 mm thick and spanning over 20 ft . Finally, the shells were each moved on top of the adjacent formwork, letting the inverted form of one hole become a paraboloid cap to the other that encloses the structure. Thus, a 4.5 ft hole becomes a 9 ft tall interior space.”

https://newatlas.com/architecture/papier-mache-house-agg-hab/

Great idea.

> When you think of papier-mâché, school art projects and carnival floats may come to mind, but a team of architects has used it to create something a bit more ambitious. The team mixed strips of recycled paper and non-toxic glue to create pair of prototype shelters in rural Texas.

Oh for goodness sake, make the glue toxic, please. You do not want biological degradation.

It rains and you suffocate under tonnes of collapsed wet newspaper

wookiemeister said:

It rains and you suffocate under tonnes of collapsed wet newspaper

That problem could be overcome. The paper (cellulose) is the reinforcement within a polymer matrix, just like carbon fibre composite or fibreglass composite. A layer of paint on the outer surface will keep out the rain so long as it’s kept in good condition.

A lot of furniture (doors, Ikea, etc) is made from what is essentially paper.

While on the topic of paper armour, a la mythbusters, I’ve been wondering if car tyres stuffed with dense crumpled paper could be proof against police spikes.

It would need to have fire retardant in it.

Paper houses are just begging for it

wookiemeister said:

It would need to have fire retardant in it.

Paper houses are just begging for it

Mind you if you had an adequate risk assessment you could fill out before living in it im sure it would be fine.

mollwollfumble said:

While on the topic of paper armour, a la mythbusters, I’ve been wondering if car tyres stuffed with dense crumpled paper could be proof against police spikes.

Aboriginal way is to stuff the tyre with spinifex.

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

While on the topic of paper armour, a la mythbusters, I’ve been wondering if car tyres stuffed with dense crumpled paper could be proof against police spikes.

Aboriginal way is to stuff the tyre with spinifex.

A dodge used in many parts of the world, with suitable local vegetation.