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This is a scale model I made from balsa wood of my wife's new office and workshop here at our ranch. The roof is helical and the walls of the building wil be post and beam with strawbale "infill" construction. I've been studying strawbale building techniques and am fascinated by the R values it provides. Especially for cooling, which is a huge concern here in the inland valleys of southern California. I'll show a couple of angles on the building whose dimensions will be 33ft long by 21 feet wide. There are no actual right angles on the building and it will be surrounded with an observation deck so pam can watch her horses and employees while having coffee or a mojito...lol.
As you can see the roof line at the eaves is also uneven so that I can shade certain windows and allow others to receive full light during certain times of the day taking better advantage of a "passive solar" type design on the building.
Thanks for the kind words, but I haven't even put the first caisson in the ground yet as we're kind of in the middle of horse breeding season here at the ranch and it can get pretty busy when 15+ mares are all in season at the same time...lol!
The stained glass work will be discussed down here in mid May, when a dear friend is kidnapped and brought down here to join in our 3rd annual DG roundup at the ranch. He has yet to actually accept the commission, but IF I can actually build this thing, I don't think it will be a problem to get him to participate in the process ...for Pam...of course...lol.
The math of the roofline is being calculated by a professional structural engineer, since I'm not very structural and I'm a biologist...lol. Engineering, is just a bit too detailed for a banana-head like me. I'm leaving the calculations, structural integrity issues, and the angles on my lumberman's cut list to them. I, on the other hand, just have to conceive of, design, and build the doggone thing...piece of cake...lol.
I do hope that I can show some pics of the the beginning of principle construction within the next few weeks so that we can all share in the process and I can get some pointers from those of you here who are old hands at this kind of stuff.
