CountryPlans Forum

General => General Forum => Topic started by: kyounge1956 on May 08, 2008, 12:52:53 AM

Title: Tent House
Post by: kyounge1956 on May 08, 2008, 12:52:53 AM
I found the article on the Tent House, designed by Jeff Milstein. It was in Popular Science, June 1975, pp 86-88. The article has a drawing with some of the dimensions but it isn't a full construction drawing and doesn't include the pattern for the tent.  For that you had to order the plans, which cost all of $5. I don't know if they're still available from Popular Science.
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: glenn kangiser on May 08, 2008, 01:47:31 AM
There is a place that still sells tent houses of sorts near me.
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: ScottA on May 08, 2008, 02:52:03 PM
I can't remember where I saw it but it was a house that was basicly a roof and floor. The walls where canvas an made to be opened up during dry weather. I would think you'd need a tropical climate to live in one but it might work as a vacation house in other areas.
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: kyounge1956 on May 09, 2008, 12:17:35 AM
Quote from: ScottA on May 08, 2008, 02:52:03 PM
I can't remember where I saw it but it was a house that was basicly a roof and floor. The walls where canvas an made to be opened up during dry weather. I would think you'd need a tropical climate to live in one but it might work as a vacation house in other areas.
No, that's a house tent <g>. The Tent House was a little (88 sq ft opened up, 32 sq ft closed) building with a fabric roof and one fabric wall. It was designed to be built in panels in a home shop, then transported to the site and assembled. One wall drops down to make a floor, then the tent door zips open to form an awning. There was a folding bunk bed inside too. Then when finished with your camping trip you could raise the floor back up again (with a built-in winch) and if desired padlock the building. Or the entire building could be disassembled and moved to a different location. It's in two of Les Walker's Tiny House books.

During my search for the article I also found a nifty online index of "How To" articles at http://www.nleindex.com/index.php?pID=HTDI&sID=Welcome
By the time I located this index I had already found the article, but if I hadn't, this index would have told me where to look. It led me to some other interesting pre-built structures, including a few full size (but small) houses, and an article on how to build a temporary geodesic dome cabin out of recycled cardboard sheets or an icosahedron out of carpet tubes. One of these very cheap temporary buildings might work for temporary cat housing (I have several pedigreed pusses) while building my "real" house.
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: John Raabe on May 09, 2008, 11:02:23 AM
Are you thinking of the Campground Cottages that started life as just a platform where canvas tents were put up for summer revivals (mid 1800's)? These evolved over the years into permanent gingerbread summer cottages. Very interesting house style. See p. 32 of Tiny Houses.
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: CWhite on May 09, 2008, 02:56:16 PM
I have had this bookmarked for awhile.  It is kind of the king of tent living in my opinion. 
Even after spending so much time living in a yurt for the past year and a half.


http://www.actionafrica.com/pictures.htm

Christina
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: CWhite on May 09, 2008, 02:59:48 PM
http://www.exclusivetents.com/tent-gallery.html

Sorry, this is a better link to see the "real gallery of tents". 
C
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: kyounge1956 on May 09, 2008, 04:23:12 PM
Wow! talk about the lap of luxury. Some of those tents look bigger than, and they are definitely better furnished  than my house!

Karen

Quote from: CWhite on May 09, 2008, 02:56:16 PM
I have had this bookmarked for awhile.  It is kind of the king of tent living in my opinion. 
Even after spending so much time living in a yurt for the past year and a half.


http://www.actionafrica.com/pictures.htm

Christina
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: Sassy on May 10, 2008, 01:10:57 PM
Those look like some of the tents they advertise on the high end safari tours...  pretty fancy!
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: rose09 on July 30, 2009, 11:35:32 PM
i just want to ask if where did you find that article and what is the title of that article?
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: Pox Eclipse on July 31, 2009, 06:40:13 AM
Quote from: kyounge1956 on May 08, 2008, 12:52:53 AM
I found the article on the Tent House, designed by Jeff Milstein. It was in Popular Science, June 1975, pp 86-88. The article has a drawing with some of the dimensions but it isn't a full construction drawing and doesn't include the pattern for the tent.  For that you had to order the plans, which cost all of $5. I don't know if they're still available from Popular Science.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NwEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA86&dq=%22popular+science%22&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: kyounge1956 on July 31, 2009, 09:16:39 PM
Quote from: rose09 on July 30, 2009, 11:35:32 PM
i just want to ask if where did you find that article and what is the title of that article?
________________
Event tent (http://www.buyshade.com)

Here is the citation from the index I linked above:
Build a tent cabin. A small vacation shelter is half wood and half canvas. The wooden part is 4-ft. wide, 8-ft. long and 8-ft. tall. One wall folds down to form the floor of the tent section which is 8-ft. square. Est. cost: $500.
POPULAR SCIENCE Jun 1975 (v.206#6) pg. 86

Probably your public library has the Popular Science issue bound or on microfilm. If not you may be able to request a copy of the article via interlibrary loan. But as I mention above the article does not include the complete plan. I haven't looked at my copy of the article in a while and don't remember if it had enough measurements to lay out the pieces of the canvas cover. I think that would probably be the trickiest part.

Karen
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: rick91351 on August 01, 2009, 01:03:25 PM
Seems as if the cabin tent, wall tents or sheepherder tents I know them to be called have become over looked as a very viable means of summer living.  One reason is they are expensive and heavy and can be some what hard to erect the first time or two.  But they were usually tall and airy, very easy to ventilate, easy to heat so long as it is not all that cold. Those tents could be miserable during the day, even in that shady environment.  But they sure cool off nice at night.  Wall tents can be stretched over a pipe frame with a pipe center beam using plumbing fittings and a few special items that can be wielded together very easily or you can buy the kits and just add the threaded pipe and just screw the frame together using the fittings.  Or the center beam might just be a rope stretched between to trees and poles holding up the sides.  Or a wooden frame with a wooden floor if you want to go the extra mile.  Anyway they are a great escape from the cramped $99 throw away models.  A couple down sides of them beside the weight and the expense is they do not fit in the trunk of a car with the cooler and the stove.  They are usually made from real canvas, like sail canvas not the heavy treated water replant GI stuff.  So you treat them a lot differently.  Make sure they are dry and clean when you store them and well folded.  They are a big, but very good investment and if treated right they will last a very long time.               

Interesting - before that advent of lots of 'modern stuff' lots of ranch and farm folks would more or less leave their homes and set up wall tents or sheep herder tents in a grove trees in the summer time usually close to the home.  If prosperous they might even have wooden frames to stretch the tent over and wooden floors.  My grandparents spot was not close to the house but almost a half mile away.  That was about a hundred years ago and that grove of Quaking Aspens that is still there today.  We have camped there and picnicked there many times.  My mind wonders and I can almost see the tents and the kids playing there.  The reason being was to escape the hot weather and the heat of the wood fired stoves used for cooking.   Living in the shade from those trees was the only relief from the heat.  Seems as if they had global warming back then as well.  The lack of home cooling was another reason the screened in sleeping porches became so popular.  That and the belief that it was heather.  I have seen several plans from the Craftsman / Arts and Crafts Era that incorporated sleeping porches.  They touted the belief in healthy sleeping porches.

rlr


         
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: Pritch on August 02, 2009, 12:33:55 AM
Karen, thanks for posting this.  Pox, thanks for providing the link to the article. 

This really got me thinking!  I think having drop-down decks on both sides would be great.  On one side, you would have a canvas walled tent and on the other a canvas roofed screen room.  The center "shed" could have a peak roof and the eaves could overlap the canvas roofs of the "tent" sections. 

The shed section could have the woodstove, as having the stovepipe protrude from the solid roof would be more weather tight. 

Pritch
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: kyounge1956 on August 03, 2009, 05:36:48 PM
Quote from: Pritch on August 02, 2009, 12:33:55 AM
Karen, thanks for posting this.  Pox, thanks for providing the link to the article. 

This really got me thinking!  I think having drop-down decks on both sides would be great.  On one side, you would have a canvas walled tent and on the other a canvas roofed screen room.  The center "shed" could have a peak roof and the eaves could overlap the canvas roofs of the "tent" sections. 

The shed section could have the woodstove, as having the stovepipe protrude from the solid roof would be more weather tight. 

Pritch

You're welcome!
I thought of putting drop-downs on both sides too, when I saw this design in Tiny Tiny Houses. Thinking back on it, I don't know if it would work, at least not with the original design, which has a fold-out bunk bed inside. But I think it would work with a cot or air mattress instead of the fold-out bunk. The other thing that seems to me might be a problem with double-drop-downs is that the structure might not have enough diagonal bracing. I'm not real strong on structural stuff but I think in that case it would basically be an 8' high x 8' wide x 4' deep box, open on both ends. It sounds sort of flimsy, but maybe it would work with the corner posts set permanently in the ground as in a pole building, rather than just standing on the surface of the ground as in the original (but then the ability to disassemble the building and move it to a completely different site would be lost), or possibly with some small diagonal braces in the corners, like those on a timber-framed building.

Karen
Title: Re: Tent House, or yurt?
Post by: archangel on August 07, 2009, 10:04:09 PM
A yurt is a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure traditionally used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia.
Title: Re: Tent House, or yurt?
Post by: Pritch on August 10, 2009, 04:03:57 PM
Quote from: archangel on August 07, 2009, 10:04:09 PM
A yurt is a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure traditionally used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia.
A tipi is a conical tent originally made of animal skins or birch bark and popularised by Native Americans of the Great Plains.  ;D 

I think the appeal of this combo shed/tent has over a wall tent, yurt, tipi or the like is the ability to quickly fold it up into a secure shed during the offseason. 

-- Pritch
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: Pox Eclipse on August 15, 2009, 06:52:21 PM
A guy goes to a psychiatrist.

"Doc, I keep having these alternating recurring dreams. First I'm a teepee; then I'm a wigwam; then I'm a teepee; then I'm a wigwam. It's driving me crazy. What's wrong with me?"

The doctor replies, "Relax! You're two tents."
Title: Re: Tent House
Post by: ListerD on August 19, 2009, 08:07:33 AM
 ::) OMG that joke is sooooo bad! LOL!

I have the bolt together house plans from Milstein he's certainly a thinker.

I have a magazine from Canada, it's one of those artsy architectural magazines that has a tent home in it. I'll see if I can find the linked website once I find that magazine again. Pretty cool ideas.