Alex,My first question why are you building in SB? If the house is going to be so big anyway whats the point? I am sure it would have some nice spaces in it but I am unsure of what your design brief is for the house. Big and complex does not equate to sustainable. I also have the impression the building would require a serious structure with the curved floating roof structure making it relatively unsuitable for SB. Because the structure will create severely concentrated point loads making it quite unsuitable for SB construction.
The spreading loads of the huge shallow arch can not be taken up by the SB end walls. The arch would need some form of ties to prevent the spreading loads transferring into the end walls.
I also have many other considerations I think you should think about or reconsider like the amount of glass which is far to great for thermal comfort.
At 07:36 AM 4/12/04, you wrote:
On a different note, I'm now tinkering with DesignWorshopLite and have come up with this idea http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/aleric31/album?.dir=/4487&.src=ph&store=&pr odid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/bc/aleric31 for my dream house. It'll be post and beam with strawbale in fill, oh and a lot of glass too. I did wonder about semi self supporting à la Amazon Nails, but I figured with that much unsupported roof span the outward stresses on the walls would be too much. Anyone got an ideas?
Rene Dalmeijer