Wharf pictures

Here are the pictures from the Google Sketchup model of the wharf:

Sustainable house

Here is a sustainable eco-house with solar panels and efficient heating.
It's specifications:
Construction: Timber frame walls; floor is 100mm slab with 50mm screed and 50mm polystyrene (with embedded water pipes for heating via solar hot water / wet back system); timber truss roof with corrugated steel cladding.
Windows: PVC framed double glazed.
Thermal mass: Concrete floor and stones surrounding wood burner.
Insulation: During building used the thickest batts possible along with 50mm of polystyrene.
Materials: Untreated timber used in the house.
Passive design: North facing windows and blinds.
Water heating: 6 flat solar panles.
Energy saving features: Heating system using solar combined with wetback to heat underfloor of house as well as hot water for showering etc.

1st contender for the Eco Building Material

This is likely to be one of the building materials used in the building of our civilisation on the Matai islands:
EcoFaeBrick
Under the brand of EcoFaeBrick, we are providing a breakthrough wall material to you. We offer you a brick that 20% lighter compared to the clay brick but 20% stronger in terms of compressive strength. By using EcoFaeBrick, you will get benefit not only in the higher quality of bricks but also in the lower structural cost. Please do not worry that such high quality of bricks will cost you extra, as we sell EcoFaeBrick at the same price as you pay for ordinary clay brick.We use 75% of processed cattle waste as our material. EcoFaeBrick is a safe product in terms of technical as well as health concern. Laboratory tests for the product have been conducted.
This was sourced from ecofaebrick.com

The Plans

As you may have noticed on the post before this, there was a large clearing by the bay on the island, and that is where we plan to build our civilisation. There is a whole list of things that we need on our island, and we have a plan.

Order of things we need to do:

1) We require boats to get to the island

2) We need a dock or port for our boating needs

3) We must to establish our vegetable gardens and livestock

4) We need to get the clearing ready to be built on and get the materials.

5) We must build our Town Hall, for a meeting place and an operations centre

6) Build the housing

7) Establish all our businesses and trades, plus the classroom and recreational ground (rec ground)

8) Let our community flourish and grow

I shall soon post our building needs, and describe our all of our plans in more detail, plus provide a map of all the additions to our community. Here is a close-up of the clearing as it is now, and I shall update it every time something happens or is built:

To the right is the sea, and the stream feeding into it, at the top is the deep forest, the bottom is the light woodland, and to the left is the river. I hope to publish my plans soon, but there is only so much you can do in a day.

Matai Islands Map

There are four (non-existent) islands in the Matai Islands, and we are pretending that we are going to inhabit one of them (Three other classes are going to have the other ones). Our island has a bay facing the North Island, and our settlement will be near the bay. I drew a picture of the island, and I will be posting the updated version every time we (supposedly) build a new bit. Here is the image (Click on it for enlargement):

It is 45 by 22 kilometres, which makes it 9902 kilometres. There is a key to go with it:

Orange: Beaches.

Light Green: Light Woodland.

Dark Green: Thick Forest.

Blue: Water.

Purple: Higher Ground e.g. a mountain or large hill.

Our island has some Uranium deposits and also limestone.

The other islands all contain different materials

One of them has Oil and Diamonds,

Another one has Natural Gas and Ironsand,

And the last one has Coal and Gold.

The other three islands contain more valuable materials, which is good because then we won't be digging up our island and ruining it's ecosystem.

We have a plan for what we need and are going to put on our island, but more about that later.