Watch: Making a Concrete Tent
Russ Chastain 02.28.18
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This video is less than 3 minutes long, but it shows some really cool stuff called concrete canvas. And yeah, I know this isn’t brand-new technology, but it’s pretty great and it’s certainly worth a look. It’s concrete cloth, which is flexible fabric impregnated with the elements that make up concrete. Flexible as can be — until it’s been wet and allowed to cure, at which case it’s hard as a rock.
The application we see in the video is a prefab building that comes in a plastic bag. Fill the bag with water to begin, and once that happens you have about 5 hours to get it up before the concrete within the canvas begins to harden.
Connect an air blower to inflate the building, and use a vehicle to help unfold it as you go.
Once it’s fully raised, let it cure overnight and then get busy enjoying your formerly soft, now hard, shelter — which comes with its own doors. It can be covered with dirt for insulation or protection.
Pretty cool, if you ask me. I’d love to see buildings like this become affordable. It could make for a really cool emergency shelter.