This idea came from my idea of using "natural" formwork, which I originally thought would be dirt or rocks or something, but then I realized that Big Sky, Montana is usually covered by like 80 inches of snow, so the dirt may be a little hard to get to. Not only that, but what do I do with it afterwards? Snow is a lot easier to displace on a mountain covered in snow.
The issues I can forsee with this are obvious. Will the snow be strong enough to withstand the wight of the concrete poured on top? Will the concrete penetrate the snow in some way? I guess I'll find out.
Also on the slate for tomorrow is further researching the geology of Lone Mountain, the mountain in Big Sky. I need to find out if the geological composition of the mountain holds anything suitable for aggregate in concrete. The idea is, if it does contain something useful, then it can be used in the concrete mixture for the hut, thus relating the hut to the mountain even more.
Having the concrete formwork AND aggregate already on site would make construction tremendously easier as well. Building this high up on a mountain, bringing things to and from the site is half the battle.
I also need to stop procrastinating and build my site, now that I am pretty sure I have one chosen, and I have chosen which hut concept to move forward with.
Matthew you have me very intrigued here. I have big, big doubts about the effectiveness of snow as a formwork for concrete, but I have to admit that I'm very curious to know how it turned out. Also, now that it's summer, have you tried using other "natural" concrete formworks?
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