HOW TO BUILD FLOCK HOUSE:

How To: Flock House  

BUILDING CODE IN YOUR CITY > >

FLOCK HOUSE PATTERNS AND PLANS > >

MATERIALS TESTING AND RESULTS > >

FLOCK HOUSE PROTOTYPE 2 > >

FLOCK HOUSE PROTOTYPE 1 > >

FLOCK HOUSE AIR SHIP AIR CITY > >

Several designs for the size/shape of a universal base made with appropriate materials, these are made from scrap piping:

View results from experimental research and appropriate technology done by Humboldt State University's Engineering 101 Class > > here

Video: Making Flock House planters from used plastic bags > >

 

Video: Making architectural panels from used plastic bags > >

 

Video: Testing hand crank power system > >

 

View photographs of Flock House building experiments by Engineering 215's team pple Skins: Erilynn Helliwell, Cristina Olivares, Camille Penny, and Troy Smith > >
Link to Album 1
Link to Album 2
Link to Album 3

How to Build a Solar Panel > > Link

 

Version 2.0 of FLOCK HOUSE:

Reclaiming partially sunken vessels from New York’s waterways, interiors of car parts and other modes of transport from surrounding junkyards, Flock Houses are made from crushed materials otherwise difficult to recycle. Useful parts of these junked transportation devices are saved and turned into Tools for Living on the Flock House. By sourcing collected data from websites including UNHCR, UNU, Center for Immigration Studies, Refugee Council USA, NNIRR, MigMap, CIA, and UNEP, the shape and form of Flock House was inspired by patterns of global human migration, immigration, and pilgrimage. Flock House represents migratory structures as part of the city’s ecology. 

1. Making Material:

Assemble piles of refuse in an orderly fashion next to industrial grinder.
Assemble an assortment of tools to aid in the object’s deconstruction, including an angle grinder, cutting torch, hammer, saw, ratchet set, and rags.
Start by removing the batteries and all electrical systems. Remove all fluids.
Remove any parts that could be used for Tools for Living inside your Flock House.  Consider this carefully before cutting.
Use your Saws-All with a fine-toothed blade, and begin cutting.
Some may want to first mark their intended cuts beforehand and others will start right in, relying on intuition. I prefer the spontaneous approach. Look out for falling or sharp objects.
When the objects are cut into pieces, turn the industrial grinder on and add the pieces one at a time. The result will be a pile of finely chopped refuse.
This is your building material, but now you have to make a mold.

2. Making a Mold for the Flock House Foundation:

Use scrap wood and screws or cardboard and tape to construct a mold for your Flock House material.
Shape the Material according to symbolic data mappings of movement, migration, immigration, and pilgrimage.  This form is important as it reinforces the importance of social flexibility, collaboration and community support, infrastructure reuse, and highlights housing needs.
When your mold is done, begin coating it with the material you made in step 1 along with an appropriate binder.
Let it dry. This is your foundation.

3.  Adding Modular Elements to the Foundation:

Find an unused structure and collect metal conduit from the electrical wiring.
Cut this conduit into assorted lengths with your angle grinder.
Press the ends using a vice or hydraulic press, and drill holes through the pressed ends.
Insert bolts through drilled holes and attach these lengths together, forming a rhizomatic pattern that can fit inside of the empty spaces left in the foundation.
These shapes can be added to or subtracted from as needed.
Attach these shapes to the foundation with longer bolts, or cut threaded rod into appropriate lengths.
Cover and enclose with waterproof fabric.  Visit a marine yard and ask for some used marine shrink-wrap, or visit a billboard company for leftover supplies.

4.  Introduce Living Systems to your Flock House:

Find a broken canoe or kayak and install it as an elevated nap area, and create a workspace underneath.
Begin a garden by forming a relationship with a gardening store, and acquire edible and medicinal plants that are unhealthy for free or at a discount. Nurse these plants back to health.  Or help the Parks Department by doing some necessary pruning. Take small clippings from a botanical garden nearby. Leave clippings in water until new roots sprout. Plant these in your Flock House garden. Save your compost and return these nutrients to your garden.  Affix your garden to the exterior of the Flock House.
Install a chicken coop on the exterior of the Flock House. On occasion, let them run free range through city parks.
Install human-powered energy systems including bike-power systems and hand-crank systems in the Flock House, minimizing
Department Of Buildings permit requirements and providing on-site workout.
Install a rainwater collection system on the exterior, and store the water in a storage area underneath Flock House.

These are basic directions for building a Flock House. The more you move, the less your Flock House is considered an actual building, and the more people who build Flock Houses, the larger and more communal your temporary spaces can become when you connect them with your neighbors’ units.
*Directions are borrowed from Dan Devine’s “How To Turn Your Car Inside Out” with further details to come.

Version 1.0 of FLOCK HOUSE:

Was built as a test space in the summer of 2010 inside Smack Mellon, a 1995-founded non-profit arts center located in DUMBO, Brooklyn, as part of an exhibition curated by Sara Reisman, Condensations of the Social. During the exhibition, six artists established semi-residence in the Flock House, with the space shaped and used according to each resident’s work. FLOCK HOUSE expands upon Version 1.0, and collaborates with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and the City’s public permit offices to realize the sculpture as a mobile living structure with a series of public events.

Visit the log for Version 1.0 of FLOCK HOUSE <here> including projects by Ecoarttech, Ian Daniel, Kim Holleman, Kadar Brock, Tressie Word, and Paul Lloyd Sargent.

Click Here For FLOCK HOUSE Images