#geodesic dome

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Built a geodesic dome in the backyard today 😁

[lahistory]

A photo of Triponent House in Beachwood Canyon, designed by Bernard Judge, born on this day in 1931. Photo and quote below come from Judge's 2021 obituary by Greg Goldin, published in Metropolis:

Bernard Judge was the "Los Angeles architect whose Mylar-sheathed geodesic dome house pinned to a ridgetop in the Hollywood Hills became a symbol of jet-age L.A."

[altered-statuses]

Simply Living no.11 (Australia, 1980)

[movingtothefarm]

GeoWind, founded by physicist Young June Jeon, develops rooftop wind turbines inspired by geodesic domes. They capture wind from any direction and generate power at low speeds (around 4 m/s), making them suitable for both urban and rural use. The turbines are scalable, can be paired with batteries for storage, and are especially useful for improving energy access in remote areas. Their design is open-source in developing countries to support wider access to clean energy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLSyKUCkvQY

GeoWind: https://geowind.kr/

[trashybooks]

Multicolored and porcelain tiles in a mid-sized mountain style Image of a bathroom with porcelain tile and a colorful floor, shaker cabinets, quartz countertops, a one-piece toilet, gray walls, and dark wood cabinets.

Christian A Perez

[fullyunsourced]

The smartest airplane structure that didn't get used

It's not that often that a paradigm-changing invention becomes obsolete at the same time it's introduced, but the geodetic airframe is exactly that. Can you think of other examples?

Geodesic (or geodetic, depending on who you think deserves the points for coining it) airframes are an ingenious way of building a strong structure using geodesic design principles. The way a normal airframe is built, severing an individual part of the frame can lead to a catastrophic failure, with cascading failures due to increased stress without that member.

On a geodesic airframe, the frame is made out of a triangular web of beams, which can hold an extremely high amount of weight as well as distribute the stress among more structural parts. You might be familiar with the concept from geodesic domes such as Spaceship Earth at Epcot. It probably wouldn't take anti-aircraft fire as well though.

Okay, so geodesic design was around for a long time before Barnes Wallis showed up, he was just the first guy to get it properly applied and used in production aircraft. So why aren't we using it now if it's so much better? Just after this principle started to see use in the mid-1930s, there was yet another change in aircraft structures!

In the 1930s (which meant most WWII designs), nearly every aircraft used some kind of very light paneling or cloth for its skin, so the skin couldn't take any kind of structural strain, it's just there for aerodynamics. This kept things light, and the geodesic airframe was a gamechanger for that because the frame was the only thing holding the plane together.

But right after that came stressed-skin fuselages, the same kind used in most aircraft today. The skin is metal and actually serves as a significant part of the frame. The stressed skin handles the strain going horizontally, and the longerons (like a rafter beam) handle the rest. Redundancy is achieved by the skin holding itself together. (This is my best understanding of it, I'm not a real engineer)

Geodesic structures still see a little use in airplanes today. There are experiments in encasing engines in them to resist flexing in larger engines as well as keeping in shrapnel in a failure. Otherwise, they're outmoded by even stronger solid structures.

[lhedoniste]

[julietjacques]

Inspiration for a medium-sized, gravel-covered backyard with partial sun.

Christopher Alvarado Ascending Lights