a. Description

Fifty-foot

Magnesium

Geodesic Hangar

for the US Marine

Corps Dome*

R. BUCKMINSTER

FULLER

(1954):

*-

The Artifacts of

R. Buckminster Fuller:

a Comprehensive

Collection of his

Designs and Drawings,

James Ward, ed.,

Garland, New York,

(1984)

These helicopter hangars are developments of the earlier ones, but they are smaller, less expensive, and can actually be transported by the vehicles they were designed to house. The structure is magnesium extruded struts and is covered by tent material tailored somewhat like a Dymaxion World map. This fabric covered is zipped into a shape that conforms perfectly to the contours of the dome. The popular image of these hangers dangling from helicopters was prescient of Fuller’s later design for super buoyant spherical cities, the vast weights of which would be sufficiently lighter than the surrounding atmosphere to produce the largest dirigibles ever designed.

Fuller, R. Buckminster, The artifacts of R. Buckminster Fuller: a comprehensive collection of his designs and drawings,

James Ward, ed., Garland, New York, 1984

Dome which results from the assembly of four triangular frames, two of which form a diamond perimeter and a half diamond perimeter for the remaining two. Each of these frames is composed of L section struts that are cross-braced and joined together. The vertices of each of these sub-frames are located in two different points in order to produce the overall curvature of the dome.

This case can create even, non-oriented, discontinuous and crystalline enclosures.