Yearning For Yurts
Ancient architectural form is portable, cheap, efficient and environmentally sound

source: Diana Kapp, SF Chronicle 2001.12.01

As an artist and creative type, Debra doesn't want to be stuck working inside four walls. She believes her circular office helps her think outside the box.

Jeff and Leslie Suhy like the feeling of "camping in the backyard." They use their round "retreat" as a guesthouse, yoga studio and hang-out.

A different way to live, and close connection to the natural world, rounded out Derek Harwell and Jen Cote's life.

These Californians have converted to yurts - a cutting-edge trend that's anything but new. The oldest existing form of indigenous architecture, originating, and still used by most of the population in Mongolia, yurts are popping up all over the Bay Area as offices, homes, art and exercise studios. They've even helped solve the thorniest of housing dilemmas - where in-laws should sleep.

The circular structures, typically 12 to 30 feet in diameter, look like the offspring of a tent and pagoda. The most popular version - several thousand dot the United States today - consists of a lattice body covered in stretched vinyl; a domed roof rises to a central skylight. Most are heated by a wood stove and have no plumbing or electricity.

Arriving disassembled in do-it-yourself kits, yurts typically come to life in a modern-day, Pennsylvania Dutch "barn-raising." Groups of friends gather
for a weekend to raise the roof. And the bonding that occurs is as strong as the structure that's created. Frazier Miller, 31, of Portola Valley, is typical
of those who've been part of a yurt raising, finding it a profound combination of creation and community.

"It was one of the most amazing weekends of my life. It was almost like a wedding - friends came from all parts of my life," recalls Miller. "And the
dynamics were amazing. It was this fluid thing. Everyone gravitated organically to a task, and by sundown, the piles of wood and fabric were a house."

And while the communal home-building and no-frills form may sound crunchy, it's not hippies looking to live off the grid who are turning to domed
dwellings. "Yurt people" are upper-income professionals, with families and new economy jobs. Or "bobos," as Miller puts it, including himself in the
tongue- in-cheek characterization of "yuppies with a social conscience" coined by the popular novel "Bobos in Paradise."

So why are these yuppies yearning for yurts? Although credited with wide- ranging virtues - yurts are portable, cheap, efficient and environmentally
sound - their growing popularity has little to do with their practicality or function. Called everything from feng shui to "the flow," it's the feeling inside a
yurt that's persuading purchasers.

"There's barely a person that goes in a yurt that doesn't say, ÔWow, I love the feel of this thing,' " says Oregon Yurtworks owner Morgan Reiter,
who constructs the less common, solid-walled yurts. "It was an amazing lightbulb. This doesn't happen in my conventional houses."

The powerful sensation comes from the circular shape, according to Becky Kennery, who has lived in three yurts and is writing a book on the subject. It's no coincidence, she explains, that so many cultures and religions use the circle as a sacred symbol - from the kivas of the Anasazi Indians to Buddhist mandalas to Navajo hogans.

"There's something about the roundness. It's feminine, sacred. The circle is the basis of creation. The seasons are circular, and so is the life cycle. The circle is very basic, very archetypal," says Kennery. "It's hard to put into words exactly, but it's very powerful."

This sense of the circle certainly influences the Mongols. They seek spiritual balance by ordering their home in a flowing, circular orientation. They adhere to a strict floor plan: The door opens south; the altar faces north; women's implements, the feminine, is east; and men's saddles and tools hang west. A fire in the middle forms the sacred center.

While Harwell, 31, and Cote, 36, who live permanently in a yurt in Fairfax, admit "there's something about the circle," what's had the most impact is living close to the land. With thin, tarp-like walls, all-natural light, a large central skylight and a solar shower, the experience of the natural world is immediate.

"I'm so much more connected to the subtleties of the world. I know the wind patterns, when rain starts and stops during the night, how the light changes
from month to month and season to season," says Harwell.

And the beauty of yurt-dwelling is this next-to-nature feel doesn't require ditching all creature comforts. Harwell and Cote watch DVD movies in bed,
most recently "The Princess Bride" on a charged Powerbook. The Suhys' Hollywood Hills yurt is wired for cable. And Debra, a designer of plant
interiors who asked that her last name not be used, works in her west Marin yurt office complete with bamboo flooring, a handmade mosaic hearth,
ceiling fan - even a photo gallery.

It's this aspect of yurts - "camping out" in the comforts of home - that is driving their wide appeal. As the trend goes mainstream, it's the many aesthetic
options - from French doors to additional windows and tall walls - that are grabbing buyers' attention.

"The interest used to be in the history and tradition - where yurts come from," says Pete Dolan, customer service rep at Pacific Yurts, the largest
manufacturer of lattice-wall yurts. "Now it's much more about ease and comfort - people really living in them and using them."

This turn toward real, everyday use is what has yurts moving out of the backwoods and in toward the city.

While yurts have yet to hit Noe Valley or North Berkeley, how they're being used would suggestion they're on the way.

"The yurt is the beginning of an adventure. A journey. Putting it up is just the start,'' says Miller.

YURT-BUILDING BASICS 101

While yurt-building may bring back fond memories of building childhood forts, precariously balanced poles and free-form fabric play no part in the yurt
structure. These round houses, which work on a system of tension and compression, are highly efficient, achieving maximum strength with minimal
material.

These nomad dwellings can be broken down to four basic parts: a lattice wood frame, a metal tension band, rafters rising to a central compression ring
and a weather-tight covering.

The bottom half provides the support, consisting of two to six sections of lattice - think giant baby gates - stretched to form a circle. The sections are
bolted together upright; a taut steel cable pulled around the top provides the tension that keeps the circle standing.

The dome of the yurt is created when a series of wood rafters, attached to the cable at one end and to a raised compression ring in the center, come
together in a spoke-and-wheel design. A hole in the center originally let smoke escape; today, it's a skylight letting sunlight flood through.

Sheets of vinyl, containing several large cut-outs for windows, form the walls and roof cover. In colder climates, a layer of insulation is hung below the
vinyl. Used from the tropics to the frozen tundra, an additional appeal of yurts is they can be altered for the full range of conditions.

While there is a science to the structure, yurt construction is fairly simple. Even a group with no prior power tool experience can put one together in a
few days. Jamie Rosen, 31, a San Francisco attorney who raised a yurt with college pal Miller this summer, put it well: "It's like building a model
airplane. All you have to do is follow the directions."

A yurt will cost between $6,000 and $16,000. The price depends on the size as well as features (wind and snow "kit" is extra; additional
windows/doors are extra). In most cases, a platform must be built before the yurt is erected.

This can run several thousand dollars.

GETTING THE PERMITS FOR YOU YURT

While yurts are being raised at an increasing rate, obtaining a permit remains arbitrary and uncertain. Yurt permits are granted on a case-by-case basis,
depending on use and location. Both the granting a permits or determining if one is required is up to local building officials.

Permits for yurts as recreational structures, or as detached auxiliary buildings (e.g. studios, offices and retreats) are granted most commonly, according
to Pacific Yurts. For use as full-time homes, yurts typically do not meet the codes.

Given that yurts are a relatively new phenomenon, particularly in urban areas, building officials are often introduced to yurts for the first time in the
permitting process. The resulting range of perceptions of yurts - from glorified tents to temporary structures to round houses - helps explain the inexact
science of yurt permitting.

"There's an education process that's still occurring for building officials to understand yurts, their construction, uses and benefits. And this is what's
happening in many permitting cases," says Alan Bair, president of Pacific Yurts.

A number of California counties, including Napa and Mendocino, and cities such as Los Gatos and Eureka, have granted permits on yurts for a range
of uses, including housing. In Marin, yurts are permitted as non-habitable structures only. However, in every county and state, decisions are made
individually, and outcomes vary.

Yurt manufacturers recommend discussing permits with officials prior to raising a yurt. Major companies Pacific Yurts and Nesting Bird Yurts offer
assistance in navigating the process, including providing code analysis, supplying blueprints and engineers' reports and working directly with officials
when necessary.

The yurt companies, however, are careful to state that permits are not guaranteed. They do say is that clients must make their own decision about
whether to seek a permit, and if so, the nature of the permit.

TO LEARN MORE

If you want to raise a yurt of your own, or just want to learn more, the major U.S. yurt manufacturers are:

-- Pacific Yurts, Cottage Grove, Ore.; (800) 944-0240; www.yurts.com.

-- Nesting Bird Yurts, Port Townsend, Wash.; (360) 385-3972; www.nestingbirdyurts.com.

To inquire about non-portable, solid-walled yurts:

-- Oregon Yurtworks, Eugene, Ore.; (541) 343-5330; www.yurtworks.com.

-- California Yurts, Ukiah; (888) 225-9878.

To read more about yurt history and construction, try:

-- "Circle Houses: Yurts, Tipis, and Benders," by David Pearson (Chelsea Green, 2001, $16.95).

-- "Tipis and Yurts: Authentic Designs for Circular Shelters," by David Pearson (Lake Books, 2000, $16.95).