Bucky and his “geodesic domes“.
When we started the research for our tent project, we were looking for inspiration in lots of different places. During that search we came along with many inspiring concepts and design approaches. One of them is very special and needs to be mentioned.
We were looking for something different, something new. And what we found is a concept that – in its fundamentals – was developed a long time ago but is up to date as ever. But more important then that, it is different and because of this very inspiring for our whole project.
“geodesic domes“
A geodesic dome is a domed or vaulted structure of straight elements that form interlocking polygons.
(…) The first dome that could be called “geodesic” in every respect was designed just after World War I by Walther Bauersfeld,[1] chief engineer of the Carl Zeiss optical company, for a planetarium to house his new planetarium projector. The dome was patented, constructed by the firm of Dykerhoff and Wydmann on the roof of the Zeiss plant in Jena, Germany, and opened to the public in July 1926.[2] Some 30 years later, R. Buckminster Fuller named the dome “geodesic” from field experiments in 1948 and 1949. Fuller worked in developing what he termed “tensegrity,” an engineering principle of continuous tension and discontinuous compression that allowed domes to deploy a lightweight lattice of interlocking icosahedrons that could be skinned with a protective cover. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome)
Even though Buckminster Fuller (Bucky) was not the inventor of the geodesic dome concept, he was the one who formed a whole philosophy around it and shaped the understanding, people have about it today.
The geodesic dome appealed to Fuller because it was extremely strong for its weight, its “omnitriangulated” surface provided an inherently stable structure, and because a sphere encloses the greatest volume for the least surface area.(…)
His personality and his thoughts inspired not just our tent concept, but also our whole approach. He was definitely a person with a vision and his own thinking.
www.changethethought.com
Bucky worked as a designer, inventor, architect, philosopher and was often considered as the Leonardo da Vinci of our time.
Take some time and explore some of his work and projects, you will not regret it.
Some Quotes:
“Integrity is the essence of everything successful.”
“Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.”
“Now there is one outstanding important fact regarding spaceship earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.”
“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
Find more at: www.brainyquote.com
Some Links:
R. Buckminster Fuller
Inventor, Designer, Architect, Theorist (1895-1983)
http://designmuseum.org/design/r-buckminster-fuller
Buckminster Fuller Institute
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge
http://challenge.bfi.org/
