In the US, we use standard 16 or 24-inch on-center framing and expect a standard 24-inch wide block to be the best option for a Wikihouse structure. The challenge is that the standard US plywood is 48 inches wide, making it impossible to get two 24" panels from a single sheet, including the kerf from the router bit. In comparison, the metric version uses 600mm blocks, and the plywood is typically 1250mm, allowing for two (2) 600mm panels and plenty of extra space to make the most of your plywood. How should we address this in the US? Has this come up before?
Hi Danny - A standard 24inch wide block would seem appropriate for the US if you're intent on matching timber framing spacing. It may be possible to make some modifications to the standard Skylark blocks to accommodate the increased width, and reorganise the cutting files so that two 24inch panels don't sit together on a single sheet, but it won't be as materially efficient as the current blocks. In the UK we have the odd advantage of having imperial dimension plywood sheets (4ft x 8ft) but metric building and framing dimensions (600mm and 1200mm), which affords being able to fit two facing panels side-by-side on a single sheet with a 10mm gap. Maybe it's worth considering if the WikiHouse blocks need to correspond with the 24inch framing centres, and also connecting with US based members on our community forum (community.wikihouse.cc). You might also want to reach out to Construx who have been building WikiHouse projects in the US and may able to offer some advice - they can be found at www.buildconstrux.com/
I am a teacher at a carpentry school and I love the idea of manufacturing the parts in a workspace and assemble it in just a few days, creating a house. For our point of view the translate directly into of topping of technology. I do have a few questions for you. Are you working on a way to build hipped roofs? I'm from Denmark and quite a lot of our 1 family houses, have hipped roofs. In the start of the video, it was stated that the u-value was pretty low, however for a danish point of view, the stated value of 0.15 - 0.18 W/m2K is not that low. Therefore I wonder what kind of isolation is used to calculate these u-values and what lambda-value the isolation had? In Denmark new houses should have a u-value 0.14 W/m2K and for our low emission houses u-value of 0.12 W/m2K. So from a builders point of view, I have problems seeing where we can build Wikihouses in Denmark, but maybe you can help me with the details of the isolation properties. Hope to hear from you. Best Regards Andreas
Hi Andreas - Thanks, great points. While we don't currently have any hipped Skylark roof blocks, there are examples of these forms constructed using similar CNC-cut plywood methods, so it should be possible with modified or custom block designs. Great to see Denmark leading the way on thermal performance regulations! In terms of insulation, the standard insulation values are determined by the cavity depth of the WikiHouse blocks (200-250mm), but you can simply add external insulation, such as woodfibre boards, to the WikiHouse chassis if you want a better U-value. Hope that helps!
Hello, I live in Chile, I would like to know why when I download the skylark 250 detailed blocks, I don't have access to all the ones shown in the video?
Hi Carlos- your are right, Amber was using new Skylark series 200 blocks, due to be released later this month, please keep an eye on our website for the update. Thanks for your patience!
Do you plan on making Revit families available for those of us working in Revit? Or would you be interested in working with someone to produce them for you?
We'd love to make some Revit families of the simple blocks but this is not something we have the capacity to do at the moment. However if someone offers to do it free and open source we would happily include the files in our library, just like we do with the other file types!
Do you have a oriven small pod design thats tried and tested. I have a 5 axis industrial machine amd interested to cut out a sample store room in the yard outside the workshop thanks
