I learned from an architect recently that finite element analysis software is what's to blame for the logjam in giant dome experiments.
We were all fully expecting Whole Earth Catalog types would be vying for a world record, in terms of height and diameter, if not at Burning Man, then perhaps in the deserts of Arabia (because there's uninhabited land for it, but also engineers used to large scale experiments).
Apparently, large scale domes, big enough to cover small towns at least, would build up anomalous stress points if constructed too regularly, or too strictly by the book, according to some well-known grid pattern.
Here then that is what we want to test, in building precisely these structures.
How well does the software predict reality? You never know until you try it.
Fortunately, the budgets involved are not gargantuan, and the real long term benefits, in terms of gained experiences, are bound to pay off down the road.
We're not talking covered structures necessarily i.e. domes with coverings. The focus is the skeleton and its pull and push points. Said skeleton is likely made of repeated sub-triangles, or LCD triangles. These were the kinds of structures Buckminster Fuller prototyped, when traveling from one university to the next.
Although honored in the field of architecture with various prizes and awards, Fuller worried about how much this discipline, supposedly concerned with the problem of sheltering humanity, had become the creature of those mainly seeking to erect monuments to their own egos.
Skyscraper graveyards dominated the urban landscape, with contemporary humans living homeless in their shadows, in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Architecture seemed more about the afterlife, perhaps not surprising given its roots.
Once we get to coverings and enclosures, the more ambitious experiments will be underwater. How big an underwater dome makes sense, and for what reasons? Don't let structural analysis software give you premature answers.
