Maximize Your View

February 13, 2006 9:29 AM

Room With A View. Has the view out of your living room window become boring and stale? No problem, build yourself a million dollar Rotating Home. A former office manager, self prclaimed "hobbyist" Al Johnstone has built quite the technological feat [PDF] despite having no engineering background, obtaining around 30 patents in the process.
posted by afx114 (19 comments total)

Selma: It's so modern... it's ultra-modern, like living in the not-too-distant future.
Troy: Now you make yourself at home here, I'll be sleeping downstairs in the visitors' center.
Selma: Oh... okay.
Troy: I'll see you in the morning. And get ready for tennis, it comes on at 10.
posted by rxrfrx at 9:36 AM on February 13, 2006

See also (not a dupe, but a similar article):

Rotating building
posted by qvantamon at 9:44 AM on February 13, 2006

Oh yeah, and it would be really cool if you could put it to rotate at such a high speed that you could literally run along the walls. Small problem with furniture flying through the window, though...
posted by qvantamon at 9:46 AM on February 13, 2006

I have this problem all the time. What I do is leave the living room. But his way works too.
posted by poppo at 1:43 PM on February 13, 2006

Massive maintenance costs+++++++++
posted by public at 1:57 PM on February 13, 2006

Conducting HDTV and telephone signals over mercury...that's pretty cool.
posted by phyrewerx at 2:06 PM on February 13, 2006

Want one.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:11 PM on February 13, 2006

You'll still get bored eventually.

What would be much cooler would be vivid "video walls", akin to a QuickTime panorama, a.k.a. Holodeck ver 0.1
posted by Gyan at 2:16 PM on February 13, 2006

meh..

it's been done

dymaxion

Fuller's house is worth the trip to the Henry Ford Museum.... and so is Rosa's bus, and Lincoln's chair, and........
posted by HuronBob at 2:17 PM on February 13, 2006

Why not just get one of those screen shades like they had in Back to the Future pt. II?

Though now, what happens when he gets bored with all the views around him? Will he then build a house with retractable legs that can get up and walk to a new location?
posted by slip81 at 2:27 PM on February 13, 2006

For those of you too lazy to RTFA:

• Solar panels supply 80% of the home's energy. Eventually they will supply it all.
• The roof can collect up to 2 inches of rain water. This helps insulate the home, and the water can be used on the garden.
• The garage has two turntables to rotate cars after they enter, so there is no need to back them out.
• The windows are coated to block 99.7 percent of UV rays to protect furniture and let in 14 percent of visible light to cut down on heat.
• And the best of all, as pointed out by phyrewerx: Phone, HDTV, and Internet are conducted through a chamber filled with mercury.

posted by afx114 at 2:53 PM on February 13, 2006

The previous thread contains a now-dead link to an article about a rotating house in Wilton, Connecticut which was built in 1968. The article describes how the architect overcame numerous difficult problems in building the house in the pre-wireless era. The cached article is here.

This house is now for sale for a cool $2.6 million. The Coldwell Banker listing with numerous photos is here.
posted by notmtwain at 3:12 PM on February 13, 2006

Connectors combine mercury with compatible metals for stable noise-free rotating connections.
posted by Chuckles at 3:35 PM on February 13, 2006

I hope things don't go awry. Obviously, the builder never read Danny Dunn and the Automatic House.
posted by marxchivist at 6:29 PM on February 13, 2006

I've seen this house, and I thought it was pretty silly. Interesting to see how he did the wiring, though.
posted by Citizen Premier at 10:22 PM on February 13, 2006

it's been done ... dymaxion.

Not quite. The only part of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Wichita House that rotates is the finned "witch's hat" ventilator on top. The rest of the circular house is fixed to the ground:



A 18 foot diameter aluminum ventilator spinning in the wind: imagine the noise during a hailstorm.
posted by cenoxo at 10:31 PM on February 13, 2006

Danny Dunn!

The freakin' redhead got to have all the science fun.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:19 AM on February 14, 2006

When I retire, I'm totally building my own technological-marvel of a house.
posted by antifuse at 1:28 AM on February 14, 2006

Danny Dunn rocks.

I'd build such a house higher, so you see over the trees.
posted by Goofyy at 1:53 AM on February 14, 2006