Submitted by Jeff Buster on November 10, 2008 - 3:32pm.
The “stars must be aligning” to encourage me to post my considerations regarding geodesic domes.
Last week I stopped to photograph the dome over
the American Society of Materials headquarters in Geauga County (photo below), and
two days ago I visited a dome home (at top of this post) in New
Hampshire, and today in the local library I noticed an aerial shot of
Buckminister Fuller and the ASM dome on the cover of the November, 2008 edition of ARTFORM magazine
.
Geodesic domes occupy a weird niche in architecture. Sean Keller, in the ARTFORUM piece which discusses Fuller and
the geodesic dome, writes: “
The domes rest almost entirely
outside of architectural history, neither referencing past forms nor, because
of their strict geometry, accommodating further formal development.”
The dome at the ASM near Cleveland is the largest geodesic
structure in the world and provides ambiance over the American Society of
Materials headquarters at 9639 Kinsman Rd, Russell Township. Besides providing ambiance over the ASM
office building, the dome’s aluminum frame also provides lightening
protection. That’s what is weird about
domes – though they are an extremely efficient way to provide structural cover,
and despite the fact that they do not require any internal supports (i.e.
columns) the spherical design has proved difficult to adapt to widespread human
use.
Perhaps new generations of “fabric like” stretchable
covererings will breath new life into the usefulness of geodesic domes, allowing
them to avoid having to fit rigid, leak prone, glazing and paneling, into the many different shapes of the dome.
The chrome dome salt shed above (in Massey, Ontario) uses four sided panels - each horizontal row having the same size panel. This design would appear to have commercial advantages over 6 sided panels.
When you look at the exoskeleton on the marine animal (what species is it?) below, it would appear that Mother Nature (evolution) had the Jump on Mr. Fuller.
Besides these photos, I have had the following personal experiences with domes –
Monterey Domes was a company in California
operated by Robert Gunther which manufactured dome kits using redwood. Monterey Domes donated a beautiful lathe
house for tropical plants to the UC Riverside Botanical Gardens in memory of Mr. Gunther’s parents. With no glazing to worry about leaking, and
with plants inside the dome (instead of rectilinear objects) the dome shape for
a lathe house is an excellent use both
functionally and aesthecitally.
Metcut Inc.(out of business in the ‘90’s) was a metal
cutting contractor from Watertown, Massachusetts
who got the huge job to cut the tubing for the Montreal Dome.
Visiting Montreal
– Empty after a fire burned off its acrylic skin in 1976, the Dome remained
vacant until 1990 when it was re-inhabited
by the Montreal Biosphere museum. The 14 years of vacancy says something about
the usefulness of domes…
There is a website for “Domeheads” and another web site concentrating on the
sales of dome homes.
I Remember Touring The American Pavillion At Expo '67
I remember touring the American Pavillion At Expo '67. It was an astounding geodesic dome.
I didn't realize that it had burned...
Both images c/o Flicker, by way of Google Images...
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=site:flickr.com+%22expo+67%22+American&&sa=N&start=20&ndsp=20
Buckminster Fuller ignored fire safety
The photos of the Montreal geodesic dome in conflagration demonstrate how easy it is for ego to get in front of common sense.
Every engineer, including Fuller, knows that public spaces – particularly ones of multiple levels (stories) like the Montreal Expo dome, can’t have surfaces which wildly propagate combustion.
Yet, the inferno photo is proof that no one, from the geodesic design engineer to the local public safety officials – paid any attention to the fact that plastics, like the acrylic skin of the Expo dome – are extremely flammable and produce deadly toxic fumes.
It is just lucky that this fire took place without occupants inside the dome. Otherwise there would have been a situation similar to The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island, where 100 people were killed by plastic smoke in about a minute.
Shame on Bucky…
dome think
"The 14 years of vacancy says something about the usefulness of domes… "
Well that may be or it could be commentary on square thinking in mankind.
An aside: why do realneo posts these days look like late 20th century poetry?
aside response
Linebreaks (when in Rich-text mode) will be formatted as such.
It looks like Jeff used Word to write his comment -- at some point in the process, he or Word put in breaks where there shouldn't be...