WORKING WITH TENTS.

Tents are one of the oldest architectural forms, and are still the primary home of countless thousands of people from desert nomads, to refugees, to festival goers. There is even a small hardy collection of individuals and families who live in the UK throughout the year in tents in small communities tucked away in the countryside.

WHAT IS A TENT?

Many temporary structures carry the name 'tent' but few of them are really tensile. The problem traditionally is that there are not many natural materials that work well in the high levels of tension required to hold up to strong winds and snow. Most structures therefore rely on a frame, with the skin gently tensioned over to stabilise the structure. They fall into distinct families.

Conical Frames- such as the Tipi.
Cylindrical Frames - Yurts
Lattice Frames - such as Benders, and most modern camping tents.
Pole and Fabric - such as the black Arabic tents, and the traditional Scout tent

There are also some hybrid forms, and our two unique tents shown below.

NOMAD TENTS

We have made several trips into the desert to meet nomads, who still reject settled life for the freedom that comes with a tented existence. Poverty is always with them, but their eyes sparkle with a brightness that only thousands of years of making their home in such pure places can bring.

Every tent begins with a herd, of camels, of goats, of reindeer or of buffalo. Whether we use skin or hair makes for very different structures. The large wild herds are now gone, and domesticated animals are precious, so hair is generally painstakingly collected over several months.

The hair colour changes with the herd and with the seasons - this forms subtle tones of colour in the wool, so each tent is a record of the journey of the tribe.

The relationship of the loom to the women of the family is important. The men may herd or hunt, but the women weave, and in the weaving the family is imbued into the home.

Having soaked up the traditional techniques, we were asked to design a tent for a nomad school. Our design takes the traditional woven bands, and the traditional ground anchors, but brings it to a more centred form, appropriate to a classroom.

The tent is supported on two swinging arms, which allow the central area to be free of poles, and which allows the tent to be rapidly lowered in the event of a sandstorm. The 12 side poles are then inserted to raise the headroom at the sides and to even the tension throughout the structure. Each pole can represent a month of a year, or a sign of the zodiac, and fractions can be taught using only the tent structure.

Sadly, it remains a model......

Please note that the intellectual property rights are fully protected. We would be delighted to help any charity working in this field to realise this design.

However, our star tent has gone into prototype....

This is not so much a tent, as a marquee, and its geometry allows for a huge range of variations of design and layout.

The combination of points and flat panels allows for some fascinating geometries, from the simplest combination of two of each units, to seven or even ten for a large marquee.

The tent can be pitched low and wide,

and it can be raised on stilts...

It made a striking addition to the 2007 Glastonbury Festival.

Where we created a Moroccan cafe to raise funds for rainforest protection.

Please note that the intellectual property rights on all variations of this design are fully protected.

see also .... Earth Structures