[Greenbuilding] A Pumice Block building on Santorini, "the blue drinkable volcano..."

[Chris Green]

My nephew, who's mad about aerated autoclaved concrete and pumicecrete, 
turned me on to this and I thought I'd share it with you folks.

The following link is to the personal homepage of Greek architect and 
graphic artist Thanos N. Stasinopoulos, who teaches at the National 
Technical University's School of Architecture in Athens.

 The papers and articles about sustainable architecture, sustainable 
cities, and about solar heating and cooling might interest some people, 
while the pages showing the Agnes house on the island of Santorini, 
built from blocks of pumice (not pumicecrete ) and with a pumice covered 
roof  may interest others.


Thanos N. Stasinopoulos home page.
http://www.delaxo.net/delaxo.htm

The Agnes House
http://www.delaxo.net/agnes/

Stasinopoulos's prize winning entry for the 1999 'Ecological Dwelling 
Ideas'  Competition in Greece features a relatively simple solar heating 
and cooling system which may be of interest to some, especially 
architects and engineers.

Comment:
This system might be useful in, say, West Texas. Use the heat landing on 
the roof to pull cooler air through the flooring and the living space in 
the summer time: A kind of solar powered hypocaust...Or store the day's 
heat to keep the space warmer in the winter nights. The fan system shown 
here could be designed to run off of pv power, I think, and the 
inclusion of hepa filters will keep the troublesome dust, etc., from 
becoming a breeding ground for various health problems in the hypocaust. 
[ One should design in some way to periodically clean the hypocaust...]

http://www.delaxo.net/ecompetition/index.html

And there's more:
Santorini Waterpixels, watercolour-like images created with a computer 
from photographs of buildings, etc.,  on the island.
http://www.delaxo.net/waterpixels/

Santorini, "the blue drinkable volcano":
An essay on the architecture of Santorini.
http://www.delaxo.net/santorini/
Because of the lack of timber on the island, arched vaults were the main 
style of roofi design. These complex roofs were considered to be "poor 
peoples'" architecture, and the rich folks who could afford to import 
timber beams like to show off their wealth by having flat roofs...or in 
some cases by faking flat roofs.

It might be possible that the vernacular architecture of Santorini 
influenced the emergence of Bauhaus and other architectural fashions of 
the first half of the 20th Century, since Le Corbusier took many cues 
from it while visiting the island.

Cheers,

Chris Green.