DOME HOUSE
I walked by one of my favorite houses today — a geodesic dome with a cap.
I walked by one of my all-time favorite houses today. It has a strange shape and what must be amazing views! It is a dome and it wears a jaunty cap!
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A geodesic dome is a hemisphere, with a network of circles that intersect to form triangles. Each triangle is subdivided into additional triangles. With this design, the structural stress is distributed throughout the sphere.
R. Buckminster Fuller named the dome “geodesic,” and envisioned covering the interlocking triangles with a protective cover. He found the structure to be extremely strong for its weight, and valued its stability and the large volume of the enclosure it created. He was not the original inventor, but he popularized the structure in the United States, and patented his construction technique in 1954.
In 1982, the geodesic dome known as Spaceship Earth opened at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World in Florida. The building and the ride inside of it are named after one of Buckminster Fuller’s famous terms, Spaceship Earth. This reflects Fuller’s concern over the use of limited resources available on Earth, and his vision of everyone on Earth acting as a harmonious crew working toward the greater good.
The house I passed today has what looks like a small beret at the very top of the huge dome. The cap has windows all around it; I thought how wonderful it would be to climb up there to read and drink tea on a sunny afternoon, or watch the stars and the moon on a clear night — all night!
