A Yurt (Hopefully) for All Seasons
Andrew Wagner
I've been thinking about yurts for a while. A long while actually. Generally these thoughts are pushed to the back of my mind, surfacing only momentarily while daydreaming about a great escape from the day to day or remembering a Compton roller-skating trek with the founder of the unfortunately long gone Dome Village in downtown Los Angeles (yes, not technically a village of yurts but a close cousin if nothing else).
Recently though, yurts have resurfaced front and center in my life. First, our creative director, Stephen Perfetto, returned from Marfa, Texas in late October and happily reported that his findings in the West, Texas desert included some none-to-shabby yurts (as well as some incredible vintage trailers) that will soon be available to desert adventurers of all types (look for our soon-to-be released February/March issue for more on that). Then, not too long after Stephen's return, I got a message from an old friend, Philae Knight, who wanted to introduce me to a friend of hers. "Hi Andrew—It seems like you and Kate Pokorny would have creative and internet simpatico. Plus she is a new friend whose parents are old friends of my parents friends. She is giving away mini Yurts to people who donate to her project. Have a great Thanksgiving!"
I couldn't ignore two yurt beckonings in such close proximity so I very recently got in touch with Kate to ask her about her yurt undertaking, also know as the Yurt Alert.
Kate got back to me with the enthusiasm that yurts often seem to spark in people. "The idea started from a combination of exploring the world of extreme crochet (Kwangho Lee, Emily Barletta, Christien Meindertsma, etc.), watching Margaret Wertheim's TED Talk on crochet coral reefs and going to the Cooper Hewitt's excellent combo of exhibits, Fashioning Felt and Design for a Living World." Being a fan of all of these influences, I needed to hear more and Kate happily obliged.
"Each piece of inspiration led me to realize that I could take what I knew from felting in college, I took surface design at Skidmore, and felt some serious yarn, 1.5-2 inches in diameter and crochet with that (with my arm, the hook I whittled was too small) to make one of these little domes that I'd been making on the subway in lieu of therapy but on a MUCH larger scale, thereby making a living structure, much like a yurt in terms of shape and material but different both aesthetically and structurally." (Below, one of the tiny yurts Kate has been crocheting for a while now and which the new project is based on.)
"By the numbers it'll be self supporting though I need to take some basic math principles and apply them perfectly. The roof of the dome has to be a catenary curve, I have to increase my stitches regularly, and I need to explore and apply pieces of tensegrity or tensional integrity, which will be a little more complicated." (That's Kate with the prototype below.)
"It'll be stiff like a basket in order to support the roof but soft still as it'll be made of wool." (Below, an illustration of the final yurt by Thyra Heder.)
I'm fundraising through an awesome New York-based startup called Kickstarter, which is crowd-sourced funding for creative projects whether it's a movie, book, magazine or a yurt—my goal is to raise $5,500 for materials by Jan. 1 and I'm at about 80% already, which is awesome." (Below, a babydoll sheep owned by the mill in New Hampshire where all the yurt wool will be processed, called Fiber Dreams, run by Jennifer Connelly.)
"This has been a cool lesson in community building and seeing how people like to exercise their expertise even if it's not what they do in their day job—I've talked to architects, mathematicians, crocheters, shepherds, shearers, farmers, specialists in spherical geometry, you name it. As I'm building this in New Hampshire over the next 6 months I actually quit my job in New York and am splitting time in Boston and New York now while working a new job, which starts in the New Year—needless to say I'm committed to the yurt!" (Below, Kate standing on approximately 200 pounds of Dorset wool at her family farm in New Hampshire.)
If you're interested in helping Kate reach her goal, simply click here to check out her Kickstarter page. Here's to seeing the final crocheted yurt in the New Year! Good luck Kate...
