ABSTRACT
Between the ancient empires, marginal lands, deserts and mountains preserved
much older ways of living. Transhumance peoples, nomads and traders lived under
canvas or felt, and their tent structures perpetuated an attitude towards unmediated
nature different from that of city dwellers and farmers. Maintaining flocks and moving
them seasonally across altitude or latitude produced a surplus of skins and sinews
that were combined with materials from the land to make shelter, and the imperative
of survival set a precise balance point of lightness/portability versus robustness: no
superfluities or redundancies. These forms of construction have no relationship
with urbanism. The construction phase repeats over and over, the limit point of
prefabrication focused around rapid and safe assembly and dismantling; almost
continuous regimes of maintenance make material longevity irrelevant. Low levels of
social organisation, often the family unit only, restrict component size and emphasise
ways of lifting in the element design.1
