Bucky responded to Shoriki's challenge with the Spherical Tensegrity Atmospheric Research Station (STARS), also called "Cloud Nines." Though never constructed, these massive, buoyant, geodesic spheres would be filled with hot air and float over Earth. Shoriki wanted a solution for Japan's crowding and imagined boats joined together to make a floating city, not too dissimilar from the Freedom Ship that was once under development. How does this get us to flying cities?įuller was later challenged by a wealthy Japanese patron named Matsutaro Shoriki to design a community that could float on Tokyo Bay. So now we have this out-there architect who popularized dome structures that were highly durable for less material expense. At the time, Snelson studied under Fuller, who subsequently coined the term tensegrity as a portmanteau of "tension" and "integrity." The relationship between those two forces allows these small structures to support comparatively great weights, regardless of whether Snelson or Fuller discovered it first. This stems from another idea that Fuller may have appropriated elsewhere, an architectural concept called "tensegrity." Kenneth Snelson claims that he actually invented this idea for mobile sculptures he built while he was a student at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Geodesic domes don't just look cool, they're economical. patent to this design and popularized the futuristic looking structures. Even though geodesic domes follow Bauersfeld's method, Fuller held the U.S. To be clear, Bucky didn't invent these domes, as Walther Bauersfeld had already designed one for a planetarium in Jena, Germany, in 1926. One of his most famous patents is for the geodesic dome, a building that looks like a sphere cut in half, composed of triangular supports. He envisioned structures that we would refer to today as "green," meaning they attempted to address environmental and social issues in their design. Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller was an American architect/engineer whose height of invention was between the 1930s and the 1950s. Let's quickly explore Fuller, his geodesic domes and how they evolved into the floating city idea he called "Cloud 9." Not only would the structures hold their own weight, but these spheres could house people, their belongings and an entire infrastructure of buildings inside. In fact, the gifted 20th-century visionary and architect Buckminster Fuller theorized that if we could build a spherical structure large enough, it could potentially float into the sky with some simple temperature adjustments. The first time I ever imagined a city could fly was when I saw Bespin's Cloud City in "The Empire Strikes Back." If you've never seen it, imagine a hovering gas mining factory teaming with pug-faced workers, run by administrative assistants who had smartphones for ears.Īs it turns out, engineers have been envisioning cities that float since long before "Star Wars" ever hit theaters. Fuller was widely known for popularizing the use of the domes. The legendary American architect, inventor, and futurist Buckminster Fuller raises his arms as he poses in front of a massive geodesic dome in Long Beach, California, on April 21, 1983.
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