Once a year, in the Black Rock Desert in the US state of Nevada, a city appears with a semblance of streets and houses for exactly eight days. It is filled with incredible characters, installations and sculptures. In the center is a huge human figure made of wood: on the last, eighth, day it will be burned. This is a festival
Burning Man.
The festival has been running since 1986 and kicks off at the end of summer - so that the culmination of the burning falls on the first Monday in September. Philip Glade has not missed a single event over the past 20 years, but unlike other photographers whose lenses are predominantly aimed at art objects and the eccentric inhabitants of the festival town, Glade captures the short-lived architecture of the festival. Last year, he published a book, which presents photographs of buildings for 2011-2015,
tells the Fast Co. Design edition. The cost of the album is $ 34, but, unfortunately, there is no delivery to Russia yet.
According to the photographer, the festival's “sustainable” ideals (for example, respect for the environment and the need to rely only on oneself) and extreme climatic conditions made it a testing ground for temporary structures. They must comply with the general rules of the event, first of all - not leave traces of their existence after dismantling. This means that houses are built without a foundation, even if they reach 30 meters in height. Stakes driven into the ground are often used as load-bearing elements. Larger structures should be responsive to the principle of hospitality and openness - so that people can freely enter there (no fortresses, Glade emphasizes). And a mandatory item for all types of structures is resistance to strong winds. In general, the Burning Man environment is ideal for testing lightweight and easy-to-assemble structures that can be used as temporary shelters in natural and man-made disasters. As Glade says, if after a week the tent is not blown away by the wind, then this is a good tent.
One such experimental object is the hexaurt, a hexagonal structure made of plywood and sheathed with insulating material. The project was created by Scottish engineer Vinay Gupta for the competition, but the prototype was tested at Burning Man in 2003. Now the festival is hard to imagine without the Gupta hexayurt: every year many hexagonal houses grow in the desert, drawings for them lie
in the public domain. The benefits of the popular hexayurt extend far beyond the festival. In particular, they served as a temporary shelter for victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
An engineer named Rob Bell creates permeable domes
zonohedra. They come in convenient packaging and are quite easy to assemble without special tools.
Some of the structures in the Black Rock City Festival are built according to the principle
tensegrity, when the stability of the structure is provided by elements that simultaneously work in compression and tension.
Some buildings are made in an ironic way: on one of his visits, Philip Glade captured a house surrounded by a white picket fence - traditional for one-story America.
The festival also saw a dwelling completely covered with loaves of bread. According to legend, on the last day of the festival, the owners of the hut made toasts for everyone.
Of course, not every Burner turns their home into a work of art or a potential business product. Some bring a luxury home to the Nevada desert - with luxurious rooms, gourmet meals, air conditioning. If we talk about the Glade himself, then he sleeps under a piece of tarpaulin stretched between the posts. “I live among the walls all year long,” explains the photographer. "And when I go to Burning Man, I don't want walls."
