Shade Structures
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Structures on the playa can experience winds of 40mph+ winds, fluctuations in temperature from freezing at night to over 100f in the day, and summertime rain. Fine dust is ever present and can quickly infiltrate every object on the playa. Electronics require special care to keep them out of the dust to prevent damage. White-outs sometimes reduce visibility to an arms length during which Burners usually find a nice place to relax in good company and sit out the storm. Storms usually pass quickly but can last for hours. Proper protection from the elements should be a primary concern to any Burner. These large structures can be where Burners sleep or but Tents are usually more private.
For advice on almost any type of playa structure check Bob Stahl's tips and experiences with Burning Man shade structures.
Note: When editing this page with your own personal experience please help us by including your experience by filling out and attaching a png file of the Playa Structure Census.
Contents |
Large Commercial Shade
Costco Barns
If the RVs at Burning Man made it feel like a trailer park, the Costco Barns make the big city feel like the suburbia.
Costco barns are usually used as extra space for camp kitchens or shade structures to keep direct sun off small tents inside. The extra layer turns a blast furnace into an oven. It's a notable improvement.
It is strongly recommended that you secure each leg of the Costco Barn to the ground with huge re-bar, then rope the roof to the ground so it doesn't fly away independent of the legs (It's happened).
Pop-up Festival Tents
These usually collapse into a tangle of thin square tubing. They are not designed to handle the winds at Black Rock Desert. If you choose to ignore the advice and use a pop-up tent be prepared for last minute storms, unexpected gusts of wind, or other doom. Doom..
Dooom.. Dooooom..
If a pop-up tent is an absolute must have item then secure it as many ways as possible and reinforce the legs. The thin square metal will buckle, plastic clips and joints will crack, and the structure will quickly turn into found art... Found by your neighbors while it rolls through their camp.
Burner-Built
Some Burners have begun designing and selling their own commercial shade structures. Examples include simple square shade like from Jon Sarriugarte or more complicated structures from Shelter Systems. Both offer simple drop in solutions for new Burners who either lack the equipment or experience to design their own structures.
 Simple structure sold by Jon Sarriugarte |
 PVC style dome marketed by Shelter Systems |
Domes
Domes are popular shade and shelter structures. Domes offer excellent cubic foot per structural footprint ratios but are complicated to build and often somewhat slow to assemble. Structurally they are quite sound and have become very popular on the Playa.
Desert Domes are the standard in dome calculations on the playa. Be sure to check your numbers and calculations. If you are smart about your numbers you can usually get away with minimal waste from each raw piece of metal tube. Measure twice, cut once!!
There are alternative designs for dome struts and Orbbject is a prime example.
Small
This is a structure built by Cricket for the 2009 Burn.
 Finished structure |
 Carefully crushing the ends |
 Carefully drilling the ends |
 Notes about experience with his dome |
A simple frequency 2 dome made by Kristopher Collins shows how potentially simple a dome can be. Proper equipment and care should still be taken in every measurement, cut, and crush of pipe.
Medium
Large
Large domes can offer great communal space but must be designed to handle the weight, wind, and anything hung from them. The Kaleidome Project demonstrates great creativity in a large structure. Take care in their warning against placing too much weight on the dome structure.
Dome covers are often the most challenging part of any project. The Oasis Dome used a very labor intensive but beautiful approach. They fabricated their own custom cloth cover.
Parachutes are popular dome covering because: 1) they provide ample shade 2) they are breathable 3) they are "dome shaped"
It is important to consider their design purpose however. Parachutes are designed to catch the wind! They do a very good job at it! Be prepared for high winds and possibly major damage to your parachute.
Tensile Structures
Tensile structures rely on the fabric as an integral component to distribute forces against the structure. Center Camp uses such a design. They usually have a series of vertical poles and a radial design to distribute force more evenly. Large stakes are dug into the ground at each corner of the fabric which are used to keep the structure taught and standing.
General information and design guidelines for tensile structures can be found at Wikipedia
PVC Rib structures
PVC structures are not as strong as metal structures but are more flexible, lighter weight, and easily adaptable to new configurations. Some domes are made of PVC. A popular use of PVC is in hamster tube style buildings like those by Clif Cox. The structures by Cliff Cox use overlapping PVC which zig-zag down the length of the structure.
Simpler PVC structures use parallel struts like Lovemonkey's MonkeyHut.
For general PVC tips check out tips on PVC On The Playa
Yurts
Yurts are traditionally highly portable Mongolian structures capable of withstanding high wind and extreme temperatures. Seemingly perfect for the Playa. Many people don't know this but the logo for the yurt (when raised on the playa) may in fact be Satan laughing at you from his yurt. (Citation Needed)
Traditional Yurts
Somewhat more traditional Burning Man themed Yurts are less common place. Tim Anderson demonstrates one example of a Burning Man yurt.
Hex-A-Yurts
