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Foster + Partners has unveiled renderings for a new scientific research and development facility design located in Oxford, UK. The project to establish a new home for the eight-year-old Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) comprises a 30,000-square-meter (323,000-square-foot) central research... View full entry
A new collaborative project between the Catholic University of America and the National Museum of American History will offer architecture students the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to repair and reconstruct one of Buckminster Fuller’s famed geodesic domes in the hopes of presenting... View full entry
A group of research students at ETH Zurich has completed a timber geodesic dome constructed from nothing but demolition waste. The research group, led by assistant professor Catherine De Wolf of the university’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, sees the project as a... View full entry
Leading modernist Bernard Judge passed away in his Los Angeles home last week at the age of 90. The LA Times’ Carolina Miranda has an excellent write-up on the man who once designed a home for Marlon Brando on an atoll in French Polynesia. Judge was in many ways the living definition of a... View full entry
Our original designs for the biomes – hundreds of hexagonal and pentagonal cells supported by geodesic tubular steel – looked more like Waterloo, but we used ETFE foil, or ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, which was more transparent than glass but extremely lightweight. It uses 1% of the energy and carbon of glass. The difficulty was creating biomes that would interlock across a constantly shifting landscape. — The Guardian
The Eden Project with its famed geodesic biomes opened twenty years ago on March 17th, 2001 in Cornwall, England. Inside the tropical biome of the Eden Project. Photo: Hchc2009/Wikimedia Commons. View full entry
While Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes may have gotten special mention in Jeff Bridges' recent Golden Globes speech, his oldest extant lattice-shelled structure is in the news for a less glorious reason. Now under serious threat, the Dome at Woods Hole and the accompanying Nautilus... View full entry
Originally built as the U.S. Pavilion in the memorable World Expo of 1967, the steel structural frame of Buckminster Fuller's Biosphere remains standing to this day as a sole landmark in Montreal's Parc Jean-Drapeau. In planning for the 50th anniversary of Expo 67 as well as Montreal's 375th... View full entry
Quoted Studios — the creators of the acclaimed animated interview series Blank on Blank — introduced The Experimenters, a brand new mini interview series that offers a peek into the minds of iconic figures in science, technology, and innovation. The first episode, which aired today, shines... View full entry
the Integratron is a sort of time machine, or at least a time capsule. It is an immaculately preserved artifact of midcentury modernist design, and a totem of 1950s U.F.O.-ology culture — the mixture of Cold War paranoia and occult spirituality that drew true believers to remote reaches of the Desert Southwest in search of flying saucers and free-floating enlightenment. — NYT - T Magazine
Judy Rosen reports on a visit to Landers, California in the southeastern corner of the Mojave Desert. There she finds a place of spiritual healing and musical sound baths, designed by an extraterrestrial architectural patron. View full entry
The Gold Dome building based on Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome will be preserved. TEEMCO, an Oklahoma-based environmental professional engineering firm has purchased the architecturally historic Gold Dome building located on legendary Route 66. As one of the first geodesic domes in the world, the Gold Dome is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. — todaysfacilitymanager.com
It was a dome of many firsts: the first dome to have a gold-anodized aluminum roof, the first above-ground geodesic dome, and the first Kaiser Aluminum dome used as a bank. Due to these forward thinking attributes, the building was billed as the “Bank of Tomorrow.” View full entry
In 2011, Tejlgaard built a plywood dome for Denmark’s famed Roskilde Festival (think Scandinavian Coachella) that became the hit of the event. This year, he and Jepsen were invited to build a pavilion to house attendees of Folkemødet, an annual town hall–esque gathering of Danish politicians and voters meant to generate national dialogue. Given the optimism of the event, the duo decided to test a new type of exploded geodesic dome--an icon of optimistic architecture if ever there was one. — fastcodesign.com
New York firm Dror today unveiled designs for a collosal artificial island to be created right off the coast of Turkey, not far from Istanbul. The project, dubbed HavvAda, is envisioned to rise from the sea by piling up one billion cubic meter of soil carved out of the main land from the... View full entry
Los Angeles architect Donovan Ballantyne has shared with us his thesis project project (a) Ball, a rather unique take on the geodesic dome concept. Along with the SCI-Arc Selected Thesis Award, this project has been selected as an Exhibit Finalist to have a portion of it fabricated for suckerPUNCH's Land of Tomorrow exhibition, and it was also nominated as a Co-Finalist for HD Magazine's Annual Design Awards. — bustler.net
