The Quickest Tent Structure: Building a Flex Yurt

Granted, I was hoping by this time we would be fitting the last boards onto the roof, getting ready for the pond liner and the green cover... But alas, we're in Mexico!!! So what can you do if the material you ordered arrives a week late, and in such a crap condition that you're forced to send back half of it? Or if the power tools and their batteries overheat and you have to put them in the freezer for half an hour every so often? Not to mention the phone calls to Absurdistan negotiating about the various types of Geo-membranes ... which may or may not show up as promised.

Embracing Side Projects

That's right, resignation is all around us. But while going down to the beach with the guitar and a joint may seem like the best option, our good friend Romain had a different idea. He decided to jump right into one of these cool ideas that many of us have probably seen on the net, and gotten excited about for a minute or two: building a Flex-Yurt. It's a yurt, all right, but way more flexible than normal. It's almost like one of those structures of Bucky Fuller that he just pulls apart, and it assembles itself into something awesome.

Simplest Material - Great Guidelines

Since the wood vendor is literally our next door neighbor, who we got to know quite well last year, going over there and buying a bunch of bamboo rods was the simplest task. Following the guidelines of the Flex Yourte page - it's in French, but these days it's easy to translate - you'll see that it consists of 48 pieces for the wall, and 24 ones for the roof. In fact, the Flex Yourte website is so well made, that I couldn't do any more justice to it... other than showing the pics I took while Romain was setting it up.

Putting It Together

Opening the Finished Structure

Details, and Details

Well, I hope you enjoyed this quick impression of a Flex Yurt. For Romain it's far from being just something to play around with. He actually wants to use this structure on his newly bought property, to live in, sleep in, provide some shade, etc. while he is building some more permanent structures. Until that is completed, combined with a mosquito-net and some shade cloth, this quick to build yurt with an even quicker set-up, is the most ideal solution. In fact, I'm thinking about copying it shamelessly...