Apartment in the Tree

Name: Apartment in the Tree

Location: A couple miles up the shore from where he was shipwrecked.

Purpose: Crusoe is shipwrecked on the island and with no materials and equipment to work with; he must find a temporary shelter that will protect him from the weather and the possible threat of wild animals on the island.

Size and Scale: Crusoe describes his first house as a “thick bushy tree like a fir, but thorny…”. As the island was loosely based on Tobago, the sapodilla tree is a semi-evergreen tree indigenous to the area and is quite possibly the location of Crusoe’s first home. They tend to grow up to 10-15m in height.

Timeline: Crusoe stays at the tree only for the first night on the island. He moves on to a new shelter the next day. Sapodilla trees have a relatively short life span with its peak growth at 20 years.



“I went to the tree, and getting up into it, endeavoured to place myself so as that if I should sleep I might not fall; and having cut me a short stick, like a truncheon, for my defence, I took up my lodging”

Hut with Tent

Name: Hut with tent

Definition: A crude or makeshift dwelling or shelter.

Location: Crusoe makes his way up a stream in search of a new location for his inhabitation. He docks when he reaches a flat area of land on the right side of the stream. Crusoe decides to situate his new shelter a little farther off the stream to enable him to stay along the same coast where he landed.

Purpose: Crusoe moved from his old shelter to explore and find a better site which could still protect him from the weather and wild animals. Now that he salvaged some goods from the wreck, he also needed suitable storage and shelter to protect them from spoiling or getting ruined. Again, the house is simply a temporary shelter until he can get rescued and/or better materials and more time to create a more permanent home.

How it is made: Crusoe simply salvages materials from the shipwreck to create his home using three seaman’s chests, a carpenter’s chest and casks which are stacked to make up the wall while planks are combined to form a roof. A tent is also built a day later when he manages to salvage some poles and a sail from the wreckage.



“I went to work to make me a little tent, with the sail and some poles which I cut for that purpose; and into this tent I brought everything that I knew would spoil, either with rain or sun ; and I piled all the empty chests and; casks up in a circle round the tent, to fortify it from any sudden attempt, either from man or beast.”

“I barricaded myself round with the chests and boards that I had brought on shore, and made a kind of a hut for that night's lodging”
Size and Scale: The hut/tent is just big enough for himself, a chest of perishable goods and a couple muskets.

Timeline: Crusoe builds the hut on the second night and on the third he builds the tent.

Narrative: Typically huts are used for nomads as temporary shelters made up of indigenous materials to the land.

Country house

Name: Country house

Location: Crusoe explores the island by heading northwest of his sea-coast house into a more heavily wooded area with plentiful resources such as fruit trees and fresh water.

Purpose: Crusoe finds the land to be beautiful and a more suitable home as there is an abundance of food in the forests. However, Crusoe does not want to remove his old shelter because he would lose the seashore house as a place to look out for ships heading down the coast. Instead, he builds the country house as a second home where he will live during the dry season.

“...to inclose myself among the hills and woods, in the centre of the island, was to anticipate my bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable, but impossible; and that, therefore, I ought not by any means to remove.”

How it is made: Crusoe describes building a bower which is a rustic dwelling made out of leaves and brushwood. He surrounds it with a double hedged fence using stakes that would later grow into trees. The growth of the stakes comes as a pleasant surprise to Crusoe who immediately recognizes the excellent shading and defensive barrier provided by the growing tree wall. Crusoe does not recognize the tree, though he refers to it as "osier-like wood". Upon further research into the vegetation of Tobago and other Caribbean islands, our group strongly believes that the tree species described would have closely resembled the Bursera Simaruba ("Gumbo-limbo"), which is frequently used as living fencing because of its rapid growth rate and because it is easily transplanted¹. Crusoe later employs this fence technology for the outer wall and surrounding forest barrier around his sea-coast house.

The tree walls create a very secure dwelling but require a ladder to climb over the hedge. As time passed the trees grew and provided shade during the hot season. He eventually builds a tent as well and continues to furnish when he has extra time. He also creates another area for his animals. The following image shows the country house in it's early form, one year after Crusoe's arrival on the island:



The following image shows the country house after 4 years, once the stakes have grown into trees.



“Under this I had made me a squab, or couch, with the skins of the creatures I had killed, and with other soft things, and a blanket laid on them, such as belonged to our sea-bedding, which I had saved, and a great watch-coat to cover me”

“Adjoining to this, I had my inclosures for my cattle, that is to say, my goats. As I had taken an inconceivable deal of pains to fence and inclose this ground, I was so uneasy to see it kept entire, lest the goats should break through, that I never left off till, with infinite labour, I had stuck the outside of the hedge so full of small stakes, and so near to one another, that it was rather a pale than a hedge, and there was scarcely room to put a hand through between them. Afterwards, when those stakes grew, as they all did in the next rainy season, they made the inclosure strong like a wall, indeed, stronger than any wall.”

Size: The enclosure including the hedge grows out to 25 yards in diameter.
Timeline: Crusoe begins building the country house in August of the first year. He continues to make improvements throughout his stay on the island. The first version of his country house was made in approximately a month’s time.

Narrative: In the middle ages a cottage was often accompanied with a barn as well as a small plot of land. In the modern day, a cottage usually refers to a vacation home or a summer residence typically in a rural location.

Notes:

1. "Bursera simaruba," Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bursera_simaruba (accessed January 21, 2010)

Cave

Name: "cave" or "grotto" or "vault"

Location
Found in a rock face behind low-lying brush or trees. Located somewhere inland where the forest becomes more dense.

The Purpose
The purpose was an additional place of defence. It also acted as a place of alternative storage where Crusoe could place a portion of his weapons and gun powder. Crusoe believed that the savages would not be able to find it because of its hidden nature. He also believed that if they did come across it, they would likely not enter it because it was very dark -while standing at the entrance it is nearly impossible to know what lies within it.

Size and Scale
Crusoe describes it as being not very big -about 12 feet across and about 6 feet tall in the first cavity. There is a passage that is at the back of the first cavity leading to an additional "vault" that is said by Crusoe to be "almost ten yards." It is presumably around 3 feet high because Crusoe is forced to go on his hands and knees in order to pass through it. The final cavity or "storage space" has a 20 foot ceiling. There is no mention of the horizontal dimensions, but he seems to quite like it and describes it as an ideal storage space. One could assume it is a comfortable space -possibly the size of a bedroom? The following image shows the cave as described by Crusoe:



How it is Made
Crusoe states that it is made entirely by natural causes: "no hands have ever been employed in making it but those of mere nature." As a result it is natural looking and is somewhat round/square. He states that unlike other caves the walls are not moist making it even more ideal and he also mentions that there is "small loose gravel" which covers the "flat floor" of the final cavity.

Timeline
Shaped over hundreds or thousands of years. It will last as long as nature allows it to.

Narrative Summary:
One of the most primitive forms of habitation and burial which date back to some of the first humans to ever inhabit the earth.

Colonialism and Exploration

Colonialism- Reasons for Practice

Crusoe's creation of an ideal civilization is based on the only society he knows of, colonial England.

1. Profits- Crusoe leaving plantation to smuggle slaves, Crusoe constantly exploring the island for materials/wealth
2. Expand Power of Mother City- Crusoe building multiple houses

3. Escape Persecution from Mother City- Building of Castle- protection from "savages"

4. Convert Indigenous Population- Crusoe converting Friday

Interest in exploration led to England's discovery of Central America and the Caribbean islands. Similarly, Crusoe finds himself on the island because of his love of sailing and adventure. The idea of colonial expansion can be seen on a smaller scale by examining the building of his home from a small tent in a cave to a walled fortress with large acres of farm land. On a larger scale, Crusoe develops multiple posts which include his country house, sea shore house and cave that protect distinct areas of the island.

Water Shortages in the Walled City

The increasing population during the 1960's put a huge strain on the water supply and in itself caused a multitude of problems. Since the buildings in the Walled City were so densely packed and were built without thought for piping, it was impossible to for the water to be piped in underground and through the city by the government. Water was tapped into the main water line outside of the city to individual homes and factories through corroding and leaky pipe lines built by the Triads. These pipes scaled all the walls of buildings and hung above all the alleyways creating a damp, dirty environment. Other businesses also physically went outside the city with buckets to collect water for paying customers but lost its popularity as buildings got higher and higher. Eventually the Hong Kong government installed 8 stand pipes for the city of which only one was inside the city. There would be long lines throughout the day for this one stand pipe where people would wash their hair, vegetables and dishes. Personal pipes also used the stand pipe which was periodically connected to replenish the small storage tanks of food industries.
Entrepreneurs took advantage of this and property owners started drilling wells on their own land in order to profit from water sales. By the time the clearance was announced in 1987, Government surveyors assessing compensation claims identified 67 working wells owned by some 40 suppliers. The more recent drilling had to drill more than 100 metres below the surface, as shallower sources had been depleted. Water was usually first pumped up to rudimentary storage tanks on the City roofscape and from there, a twisted congestion of pipes ran downward branch off to their customers. Monthly charges were anywhere between $50 and $70 per household. There were however many problems. Pressure and pumping difficulties meant that many pumps would only be turned on at set times to replenish tanks which meant only a few hours' supply. The biggest drawback with the well-water was that much of it was undrinkable. It was impregnated with the usual seepage of urban and industrial pollutants and was not even fit to boil. Well water was also inevitably contaminated by human waste which was exited the City via open drains and seeped into the ground. Drinking and cooking water still had to be carried from the standpipes.

Since construction in the city was also linked to the Triads, newer buildings had provision for water supply in order to for them to gain more customers. Once a household was connected to a particlar supplier, there were clear rules of business-client behaviour. Residents would generally pay on time for fear their water would be cut off or their pipes damaged. Whoever would oppose the Triad's monopoly would be blackmailed and attacked.

Those involved in the clearance are reluctant to admit how extensive the main water supply was tapped, but it is unrealistic to assume that 33,000 people and 700 businesses could have been supplied by 67 ground wells alone. The decision was made that it was better to turn a blind eye since to close down the illegal supplies would have caused unnecessary hardship for the residents and bring increased resentment.