One Community is demonstrating how to build a global collaborative through open source blueprints, tools, tutorials, resources, and DIY instructions for all aspects of sustainability. The cover food, energy, housing, education, for-profit and non-profit economic design, social architecture, fulfilled living, global stewardship practices, and more. We call this living and creating for “The Highest Good of All“.
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One Community’s physical location will forward this movement as the first of many self-replicating teacher/demonstration communities, villages, and cities to be built around the world. This is the January 30th, 2022 edition (#462) of our weekly progress update detailing our team’s development and accomplishments, explaining how to build a global collaborative:
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One Community is demonstrating how to build a global collaborative through Highest Good housing that is artistic and beautiful, more affordable, more space efficient, lasts longer, DIY buildable, and constructed with healthy and sustainable materials:
This week the core team continued their part of work on the Murphy bed assembly instructions. This week we generated rendered images using 3D SketchUp. We generated updated images for the Murphy bed pink electrical circuit and set up lightning. We also rendered the dome section-cut images with the bed down and the bed up with table and benches down from various angles. The same team member also updated some images for the Chicken Coop Building Instruction document by adding marking lines and updating the measurement font size.
Dean Scholz (Architectural Designer) continued helping with the Earthbag Village (Pod 1) 4-dome cluster designs. This was week #238 of Dean’s work and he is now working on the actual renders. The picture below shows his most recent updated render, now with added plants and other elements.
Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 30th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping, Earthbag Village, and the final Aquapini & Walipini website updates. This week Daniela got in touch with Tugce, an experienced engineer that has joined the team. They set up a meeting and Daniela prepared information and files in order to explain her work so far, for both the drainage and roadway projects.
Daniela researched information focusing on the drain rock depth that was initially suggested for Earthbag Village but read through various websites/articles and was not able to find the exact information. Daniela also continued to respond to comments, make edits, and go through previous versions of a file in order to find and answer the questions asked. Lastly, she used Autodesk to measure the length of the pipes in the newest drainage design. Pictures below are related to this work.
Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 79th week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis began redesigning the support structure for the rain barrels in the Net-Zero Bathroom. He first looked at the possibility of using steel sign posts as columns to the structure. The posts were perforated so he calculated the maximum load the post could support without failing due to buckling.
He combined the buckling equations with the stress concentration factor used for circular holes in the material. After determining the load they could support was much greater than the wooden columns, he began rendering possible structure designs. The first one involved using an all metal design with a metal plate as a base. The second involved using a combination of the steel posts and wooden beams. After running a cost analysis it was deemed that the wood and metal combination would provide the best performance for the initial cost. The pictures below show some of this work.
Stacey Maillet (Graphic Designer) completed her 62nd week working on the final edits and revisions to the Murphy bed instructions. This week, Stacey was working on understanding the electrical section. Tatyana also provided new renders and now Stacey is swapping out the old images with new images so that the pages will be more clear and nicer looking. Additional effort is also being put into finalizing and cleaning up the plywood and lumber cutting pages. Screenshots below are related to this latest progress.
The Compression Team consisting of Dominick Banuelos (Civil Engineering Intern), Jarot Tamba (Civil Engineering Intern), John Paul D. Matining (Civil Engineer Intern), and Marcus Nguyen (Civil Engineering Intern) completed their 19th week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing. This week the Compression Testing Team organized themselves for the semester by having meetings, making a calendar and a detailed schedule, and performing some preliminary testing on foam integrity.
They explored if the integrity of the foam is improved by using more Drexel and 7th generation dish soap. From a previous test, using 2 more ounces of Drexel resulted in a successful aircrete batch (i.e. aircrete didn’t collapse). They found that using more 7th Gen didn’t improve foam quality. All concentrations of Drexel maintained integrity for over 2 hours, but 7th Gen began shrinking after 40 minutes. The team will use this information to create the light and lightest aircrete this coming week. Pictures below are related to this work.
Shreyas Dayanand (Battery Research Engineer) also completed his 19th week helping with the solar microgrid design specifics related to electric vehicles and battery sizing. This week Shreyas continued to work on the EV Integration document. He addressed the pending comments/queries in the document and conducted the techno-economic analysis for EV charging.
He also started his research on the economics for gasoline v/s EV regarding the running costs and initial investments, etc. and researched the merits of Tesla cars over the others in the current market. Shreyas additionally added information regarding the results and conclusions from the charging analysis data. Pictures below are related to this work.
Yuran Qin (Volunteer Web Editor) also completed her 11th week helping with web design, this week focused mainly on the Tools and Equipment page. This week Yuran checked all of the links from the Murphy Bed instructions and added any that were missing. Pictures below are related to this work.
Jennifer Lee (Graphic Designer) also completed her 8th and final week, finishing proofreading and editing the latest version of the Earthbag Construction Footers, Foundation, and Flooring webpage. This week, Jennifer completed her final week on the team by finishing editing the Earthbag Construction Footers, Foundation, and Flooring webpage.
She edited the images that still had grammar and spacing errors as well as added additional SEO to all the images. Jennifer also linked the tools and material list to the open source construction webpage for easy access in learning more about the various items. See below for pictures related to this work.
One Community is demonstrating how to build a global collaborative through a Duplicable and Sustainable City Center that is LEED Platinum certified/Sustainable, can feed 200 people at a time, provide laundry for over 300 people, is beautiful, spacious, and saves resources, money, and space:
This week Luis Manuel Dominguez (Research Engineer) completed his 35th week helping with research related to the City Center Eco-spa designs. This week Luis completed his electrical analysis of the City Center Spa design and began to focus on the documentation portions of the project. He also began looking back at earlier edits and comments on the document and resolving them or adding annotations wherever necessary. In the coming weeks, Luis will continue to work on the document content and formatting to make it easily transferable to the City Center Spa design website. Pictures below are related to this work.
Frank Roland Vilcapaza Diaz (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 30th week helping, now focused on content related to the Solar Microgrid sizing. This week Frank checked the values of the energy calculation process using the first method of analysis for infiltration. He also checked on the values for the City Center in the energy balance sheet. He read over the methods and processes necessary to calculate and size the velocity, pressure, and fan size for the systems. The pictures below relate to this.
Carlos Lillo (Engineering Technician) completed his 23rd week helping with the pallet furniture designs for the Duplicable City Center guest rooms. After receiving feedback from the team, Carlos corrected the final render for the wardrobe pallet. He also reviewed the folding door hardware tutorial, according to the tutorial the spring part automatically clips itself inside the rail, so no need for a hammer or any other tools. Carlos finished this week’s hours by importing/exporting 3D models to AutoCAD so he could update the blueprints. Pictures below are related to this work.
Xuanji Tang (Architectural Designer) completed her 19th week working on Duplicable City Center updates, now focused on the City Center Lighting updates. This week, she started updating the light analysis for the bedrooms in the DIAlux evo file. Xuanji also updated the boundary of the dormer in the AutoCAD file following the sketchUp 3D model. Pictures below are related to this work.
Huiya Yang (Volunteer Architectural Designer) completed her 17th week working on the Duplicable City Center architectural review and updates related to the structural code. This week Huiya worked on trimming the walls according to the shape of the dome, importing the updated CAD drawings, and modifying the walls and columns because of the changes in the CAD drawings.
Huiya ran into challenges when she tried to modify the floor size according to the updated CAD drawing, finding that the second floor and the third floor are not accurate, so she scheduled a meeting with Xuanji to clarify how to fix this. She also patched up the missing parts and window holes on the shell. Pictures of some of this work are below.
George Koshy (Design Engineer) completed his 15th week working on the Duplicable City Center connectors we’ll use to build the domes. This week George redesigned the 2 plate V bracket due to tolerance errors in assembly. He completed the 2 bracket assembly and performed static analysis. The results show improvements over single bracket design – using two plates that slide over each other has lower strength than a single thick plate of equal thickness. The multi-plate design is more machinable but requires a thicker overall bracket. The pictures below relate to this work.
Yuxi Lu (Architectural Designer) also completed her 15th week working on the Duplicable City Center architectural review and updates related to the structural code. This week Yuxi met with the team and continued to discuss means of editing the shells of the domes and changes to the windows. Then the focus of the week was mainly on updating the Social Dome furniture based on the interior design plan and new CAD edits on items such as trimming sinks, changing faucets, correcting doors and their frames, and updating seating. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Raj Patel (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 6th week helping with the Duplicable City Center hub connectors design and testing. This week Raj worked on revising the document about the science behind a geodesic dome. He added details about how our geodesic dome is non-traditional in that it focuses on having equal triangle heights. He also came up with a design to cap off struts lengthwise at the connection. Pictures below are related to this work.
Douglas Whittemore (MEP Designer) completed his 2nd week helping with the Aquapini & Walipini HVAC and Solar Microgrid sizing. This week Doug focused on the complete details of the Earthbag Village. He continued to educate himself through HG Energy on what microgrids are and why they are ideal. This information will be used for solar energy research, specifically the power draws for resorts as compared to the current energy need estimates for the Earthbag Village. The pictures below relate to this work.
Hyun-Young Kim (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 3rd week helping with the City Center Eco-spa SolidWorks modeling and testing. This week Hyun-Young still did not have access to his PC and programs, and therefore focused on performing hand calculations/analysis. First he took a look at the ground temperature problem, and attempted to find an analytical solution to see how much ground he should include.
He found the problem to be impractical, and decided to instead calculate at several sizes and extrapolate as a function of radius. Then Hyun-Young calculated radiation losses and gains from solar radiation. He found that radiative losses outweighed the gain, and that a low emissivity was preferable – although he would like to check the calculation again. In addition, he considered the idea of putting a greenhouse over the hot tub to keep the air at a reasonable temperature and reduce losses.
Even considering pure radiation, there are reasonable gains. Additional analysis can be done when he has access to the rest of the data. The pictures below share some of this developing work.
Prathik Nirmal Jain (Mechanical Engineer) also completed his 2nd week of work on the Duplicable City Center hub connectors design and analysis. This week, Prathik completed the assembly and performed an analysis of the new connector with epoxy as the bonding substances between the bean and the center cavity for better strength.
He also added a pipe in the middle to reduce the weight and to check for better stability. Adding the epoxy as the center support the displacement was reduced by 37%. Prathik also researched how different loads act on the hub center. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.
One Community is demonstrating how to build a global collaborative through Highest Good food that is more diverse, more nutritious, locally grown and sustainable, and part of our open source botanical garden model to support and share bio-diversity:
This week the core team reviewed the slides summarizing Aircrete testing findings and shared that with Hajjar for his input. We also continued to merge the Aquapini & Walipini website content and the design criteria document and coordinated and helped the energy team move forward. Mostly Aquapini & Walipini related pics are shown below.
Another core team member completed additional edits on the Chicken coop details. We completed edits through page 60 of chicken coop assembly instructions. This work included wall framing and layout of framing members, addressing and adding comments, reviewing two wall framing videos, and researching code allowances for screws vs. nails according to IRC and IBC. Pictures of some of this work are below.
The core team also updated the complete swales section on the Soil Amendment page.
And the core team completed about 80% of a total update to our property-wide Permaculture Design plan. Pictures below show some of this behind-the-scenes work.
Qiuheng Xu (Landscape Designer) completed her 69th week volunteering, now helping with the Aquapini & Walipini external landscaping details. This week Qiuheng worked on adjusting the Lumion rendering video of the Aquapini and Walipini project. She fixed a material issue and adjusted the connection of 2 videos. Then Qiuheng did a sun analysis video for December and shared it with the team. Last but not least, she revised the label in the AutoCAD plan to match Daniela’s file. Pictures below are related to this.
And Brian Storz (Culinary Project Manager) completed his 18th week helping lead the completion of the Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan, Transition Kitchen designs, Food Procurement and Storage plan, and related menu and meal plans. This week Brian worked on the excel spreadsheet for the menu build out. He also worked with Anna on some new recipes for the next two weeks.
Brian is considering that he needs to spend some time building the two-week recipe guide so we can focus more of our recipe development on recipes that will fit into the pieces of the puzzle that is the recipe development. Brian will reach out to Anna and set up a meeting this next week to square away the development of the recipes more efficiently. Below are some images related to this.
Anna Cheal (Culinary Nutritionist) also completed her 8th week helping with the completion of the Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan and related menu and meal plans. This week Anna completed 8 recipes: Falafel-Spiced Tahini Wraps, Cashew Chicken Stir Fry with Coconut Rice, Cabbage Roll Soup, Korean Beef Bowl, Fall Harvest Salad, Salty Sweet Vegan Protein Bars, Broccoli Cheddar Quiche, and Creamy Avocado Smoothie. All of these recipes are ready to be reviewed. Anna is also in the early stages of creating a Pumpkin Chili recipe, which she plans to complete next week. The pictures below relate to this work.
Maya Callahan (Sustainability Researcher) completed her 3rd week helping with research and web design, now focused on final review and edits to the DIY Permaculture Design staging page. This week, Maya began by proofreading from Step 1 and fixed any spelling and grammatical errors that she came across. When information within the content required clarifications or elaboration, she made comments on the “Permaculture Page Content and Research” google document to receive feedback. She then made the appropriate changes.
Next, she checked the list of anchor links at the beginning of the webpage because some were not linking to the proper sections, and broken links that were found were also fixed. Finally, using the Grammarly safari extension she proofread the page for any errors that were missed on the first round of editing. Maya left off her editing process just before Step B: Zones. The pictures below are related to this work.
One Community is demonstrating how to build a global collaborative through Highest Good education that is for all ages, applicable in any environment, adaptable to individual needs, far exceeds traditional education standards, and more fun for both the teachers and the students. This component of One Community is about 95% complete with only the Open Source School Licensing and Ultimate Classroom construction and assembly details remaining to be finished. We’ll report on the final two elements to be finished as we develop them.
With over 8 years of work invested in the process, the sections below are all complete until we move onto the property and continue the development and open sourcing process with teachers and students – a development process that is built directly into the structure of the education program and everything else we’re creating too:
One Community is demonstrating how to build a global collaborative through a Highest Good society approach to living that is founded on fulfilled living, the study of meeting human needs, Community, and making a difference in the world:
This week the core team completed 18 hours managing One Community volunteer-work review not included above, emails, social media accounts, web development, new bug identification and bug fix integration for the Highest Good Network software, and interviewing and getting set up new volunteer team members. Pictures below show some of this.
Aidan Geissler (Sustainability Researcher) completed his 33rd week helping with 2nd-to-final review, feedback, and content editing that is now focused on the Health Insurance research and page. This week Aidan worked on making the finishing touches to the Health Insurance webpage on WordPress. This includes formatting, updating images, and labels, and writing a Summary section. He also followed up on previous guidance on the Electric Vehicle and Solar Farm Research. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.
Aleksandra “Alex” Gorkovenko (Graphic Designer) also completed her 24th week, now working icon images for the Highest Good Network software. This week, she worked on the Stewardship and Economics icons based on previous suggestions. She finished the Stewardship icons and got approval for all of them. Alex also finalized her next (and possibly final) round of all of the Economics icons and is waiting for feedback. Pictures below are related to this work.
Navya Madiraju (React.js/MongoDB Full Stack Developer) completed her 11th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week, Navya worked on making the app so mandatory fields would be indicated and a popup would happen that says “Please complete all mandatory fields” if they aren’t. Currently they only do this if a person clicks in a field and doesn’t enter anything. They should show mandatory fields that aren’t completed when a person clicks “Create”.
Navya fixed this issue by changing the logic onfocus and implemented an onclick button event. She then tested her code by running different scenarios like firstname, email, last name, and phone number. Pictures below are related to this work.
Rachit Joshi (Software Engineer) completed his 4th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week Rachit completed integrating the reducer into the PeopleReport component to get the necessary data, resolved bugs with previous visualization and started work on combining visualizations to achieve the targeted result. He also reviewed a potential security risk and identified the problem which was caused by inconsistent merging from dependabot and wrote some documentation to avoid this problem in the future. The pictures below relate to this work.
Aaron Chan (Software Engineer) also completed his 2nd week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week Aaron created a new feature where a volunteer will be able to view another person’s dashboard by clicking the dot by that person’s name. This feature also has a popup bar that makes it clear to the viewer that they are viewing another person’s dashboard, not their own. The pictures below relate to this work.
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