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The process of writing a book on building an ultra simple yurt-home has been interesting. It forced me to deeply reflect about what I had done. I think that it was just pure luck that I tripped over the design that was the simplest and most direct one. The ultra simple yurt has straight rafters and straight wall rods and hour glass shaped walls. The design is one that originated in Mongolia and my sense is that it was the original Mongolian design. What's especially great about the design is that it requires only the simplest of wood working skills to make.
The original yurts were Turkic and had steam bent rafters and steam bent wall rods. Steam bending does not strike me as a very simple wood working technique. Nor is the alternative water soaking method strike me as very easy to do. Turkic yurts are domed in roof and flat in wall as a result.
The Mongolian yurt derived from the Turkic design and simplified it. Mongolian people had a long way to go, far from the treeless steppes where they lived, to get Larch wood for their dwellings. In simplifying the Turkic design, the Mongolian design creates the simplest, most direct shelter of magical and complex beauty on Earth. What is truly amazing that such shelters can be created with such simple skills at such low costs.
