Sand..Is it special?

[JesseJacob]

What are people's experiences of sand?

Im investigating using it as a parti for a design project.

[primocordara]

what do you mean? should we throw in "any" experience, (like psicotherapy ) or do you mean rendering experience?

[ReD]

Very Interesting subject >> a few years ago I started looking into it & tried investigating thermal properties only to find this had very little info >> I calculated that to achieve a thermal equivalent to UK regs of 0.35 U value you would need around a 400mm sand wall thickness.
Weight becomes a major issue 1 Litre of sand weighs approx 1.5Kg
Sand needs to be dry / or dried >> for the UK this is a problem
Costs don't really stack up well unless the material is on site, dry & free as Commercial cost of sand compared to using common insulation like Rockwool is near the same to achieve equivalent U value (ignoring retaining structure)
NASA experimented with sand for lunar (off world) buildings most solutions required the sand to be bagged in some way

What is your interest in this?

[dkidston]

when compressed over thousends of year it become a very good building material.....(sandstone)

Otherwise my experience with sand is that it likes to find its way into the most obsean place of the body when you visit the beach. Regardless of how long you spend there.

It comes in a number of variates the soft bright white knid that squeeks as you treat on it. A course yellow type we find here around Sydney, and numerouse others also found allround the world, but it is my guess this is not what you really want to know about sand.

JJ what is your question truely with regard to your design project. I think at the moment it is a little to open to get meaningful ressponses.

dk

[primocordara]

I saw your picture and immediately had a "flashback" to my childhood.

My country has beautifull beaches, and we spend a lot there in summer.

The feel of sand brings back the best memories of my lifetime.

I associate it with warmth, although it gets very cool as soon as the sun goes.

[SWANK-E]

'Fine Grain 2006'

[chedda]

Sand is one of the ingredients of glass strangely. I know this from my concrete finishing days when using a power float on a concrete slab .When polished enough with the power float the concrete becomes reflective and glass like because of the sand in the ballast

[sigue2000]

You can measure time with it. It doesn't flow as well as water but if you add some water, you can start shaping it.

[aca]

I just read this article about the Cal-Earth Institute , and it made think of your question.
Its founded by Nader Khali, he’s an architect who’s looking for “simple” solutions for the shelter problem in “disaster area’s”. I mean places where they have had earthquakes, wars,..
All these people usually have, is a tent or something. He has a different solution, The Sandbag Shelter. Its cheap, doesn’t require any super complicated ( read expensive) technology and it doesn’t need to be transported. t Its kinda like an igloo, made of sandbags and barbwire.
Well its all explained on their website http://www.calearth.org/

[ReD]

Wonderful link there
I saw this site sometime ago & it has certainly progressed > those dome structures are really exceptional.