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Yurts Become Pop-Up Science Labs

Camel hair tents adopted by research scientists.

Photo: Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve

A mainstay of Central Asian life for thousands of years, the modest goat and camel hair ger (aka yurt) turns out to be an ideal candidate for a pop-up field station for scientists working in remote regions of the world.

The birth of the circular tent as a customized mini science lab is the result of a collaboration between Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and Stanford’s d.School, with a partner NGO in Mongolia aptly named GerHub, founded and run by Badruun Gardi, ’09.

The ger can operate as a field research station or a short-term living space, according to Jasper Ridge executive director Anthony Barnosky. The project is part of the Out of the Box and Into the Cloud initiative, which aims to enable collaborative fieldwork in the developing world.