Camp JRF, a Jewish Reconstructionist summer camp in the Poconos, is due to receive an Eco-Village upgrade just uphill from the existing camp. Designed by Metcalf Architecture & Design, the village includes a number of different social spaces as well as a myriad of sustainable building strategies and materials that will teach campers to respect the world around them. Campers provided input on the village through a series of workshops, and they will help build the new village as well, providing them with an additional sense of ownership while familiarizing them with sustainable building techniques.
The village will be composed of yurt cabins – round tent structures that originate from nomadic tribes of Central Asia. Recycled material, such as sailcloth, will be used for the construction of the yurts which will be built in groups of threes and sheltered by a series of colorful canopies. The yurts will sit upon platforms that are adjacent to a main program building.
Current programmatic prerequisites for the buildings include spaces for gatherings, the camp’s bathhouses, and an earthen berm that will provide excellent views for stargazing. The buildings will feature walls composed of recycled glass bottles, columns made from of stripped logs, and arrays of roof-mounted solar collectors.
Yurts are awesome. Cool tents and you cannot help but smile when you say the word. It is a shame that yurts aren’t more popular, as they would make for the perfect emergency shelter in disaster-hit areas. They are stable, easy to assemble and don’t require guy-lines to tie them down.