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Rotating housing

because it's there
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A neighbourhood of houses, each house built on a turntable, powered by solar panels on the roof or a small windmill. Like daises, as the sun moves through the day, the houses turn to face it - power stored in batteries allows the houses to turn back at night.
Time-lapse footage of these houses shows them all rotating in unison (while their TV satellite dishes remain fixed)...

In the gardens of these houses, the circular lawn is on its own turntable, geared to the house's turntable, rotating in the opposite direction. The garden shed is on it's own smaller turntable, rotating faster than the lawn or the house...

(... blah, blah, blah ... technical stuff ... services ... gas ... water ... circular porch around the house ...)
hippo, May 22 2003

(?) similar type of house http://www.thesandi...1771426/detail.html
for real [sartep, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

(?) RotoHaus http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/RotaHaus
Now I think about it, this was probably the inspiration - the important bit though is the image I was after here - that of the entire neighbourhood of houses turning to follow the sun. [hippo, Oct 05 2004]

solar panels http://www.otherpow...ower_solar_new.html
see "tracking the sun"... [oatcake, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Rotation Outlet http://www.halfbake...a/Rotation_20Outlet
by sdevet. Seems relevant. [my face your, Oct 05 2004]

http://entertainmen.../article4207801.ece [hippo, Jun 25 2008]

Rotating houses? Pah! http://news.bbc.co....le_east/7472722.stm
[coprocephalous, Jun 25 2008]

[link]






       Were you by any chance watching the Chelsea Flower Show on BBC2 last night?
sild, May 22 2003
  

       no, why? - did they have a rotating garden?
hippo, May 22 2003
  

       Some kind of weird rotating driveway with a Morris Minor and lots of flowers on it. Wasn't really watching so not sure what the point was - just thought that it may have been your inspiration for this.   

       "because it's there" - yeah, right. You just want to see a turd slowly rotate in the lav.
sild, May 22 2003
  

       Wouldn't it be easier to just have the panels turn? Besides, think of all the confused stumbling drunkards who come home late at night/early in the morning...where's the door?
oatcake, May 22 2003
  

       //think of all the confused stumbling drunkards who come home late at night/early in the morning...where's the door?//
You mean 1/5 of the 'bakers?
thumbwax, May 22 2003
  

       [oatcake] Yes, but this idea is not about what's easiest, or the best solution for solar power - it's all about the aesthetics of having a whole neighbourhood of houses all slowly rotating.
hippo, May 22 2003
  

       This is a good idea as it will also improve the quality of life for millions of tribes people in the amazon basin as their homes are being destoryed by global warming.
Liam The Baker, May 22 2003
  

       I went to see the Beastie Boys and they had a revolving stage. It was cool. I like this idea a lot. +
saker, May 22 2003
  

       "Look at [Rods] house - He must be Sagitarius!"
hippo, May 22 2003
  

       http://www.hfmgv.org/dymaxion/
kidmoe, May 22 2003
  

       Why stop at rotation - why not have the houses jostle for the best positions, so each gets as much sunlight as it can?   

       [kidmoe: good link! You can make it clickable by using the "link" button to the left.]
DrCurry, May 22 2003
  

       Variation I imagined: make all the houses round, and make some of them rotate the opposite way. Then paint giant gears on their roofs, so from the air it would look like the biggest clockwork mechanism ever built.
krelnik, May 22 2003
  

       Some French bloke who's name I can't remember and I can't find anything on google about biult a house on the chassis of a dragline excavator. The house not only rotates but can travel along the raod at 4mph.
oneoffdave, May 23 2003
  

       How about the houses are fixed, and instead a mirror is mounted in front of the building, and programmed to rotate in such a way such that it always reflects sun into the house? The control program would not need to be intelligent or anything, as the rotation of the sun around the world obeys a fixed, and known, formula.
dwardu, Jan 03 2006
  

       There's one up the road from my house. Not solar powered, but rotatable and standing on a short pole. Looks like it was built as a display home, in the late 70s or early 80s by the style, and there's an explanatory sign out the front, trumpeting the usual "home of the future" guff. It's on the road out to the tip, and abandonded.
BunsenHoneydew, Jul 27 2006
  
      
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