Yurts by Becky Kemery

Author:Becky Kemery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Published: 2006-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

One of Jerry Gray’s early solar yurt designs, this Colorado ski-hut yurt uses clear plastic on its south-facing side to increase solar gain during the day. Clip-in thermal insulation helps contain heat during the night. The solar roof pictured here has not been utilized in later designs.

Yurt Uses

The possible uses for these fabric shelters are almost endless. Owner-builders can live on-site in their yurt, in comfort, while they build a dream house at their own speed. This provides the opportunity to get to know the site—where the wind blows and the water flows, how the sun affects the site as it moves through the seasons, where the cold spots are, and where the best garden and orchard sites might be—all before starting to build.

When the house is finished, the yurt can become a guest room, office, studio, or meditation space. It can also be sold and shipped to a new owner. Sometimes, though, the original yurt turns out to be so comfortable that the site-built house never gets built.

Biology professors Dan Beck and Kris Ernest lived in a yurt for four years while building their house near Ellensburg, Washington. “Our son was just born and our daughter was three when we moved into the yurt,” reminisces Dan. “We all slept in a loft together on two futons. We loved living in the yurt.”

“Our extra stuff went into storage and it felt like we had everything we needed in that one large space,” Dan continues. “Now that our house is built, we’ve sold the yurt to a family in Indiana, but I have to admit that we miss it. Living in a yurt brought us back to what it feels like to be human and connected—to our family and to our world. In a yurt, you can feel what’s going on in the world outside. You also become aware, when you’re bringing in wood for a fire, of how much of the world’s resources you’re using; you become more mindful. For us, the combination of the yurt, our kids, and building a house brought a strong sense of connections.”

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