My Geodesic Models & Terreriums

I've decided to make one of my first posts on this Bucky blog to be about my motivation for authoring it.

In looking back to when I first discovered R. Buckminster Fuller, I realized that his inventive use of geometry attracted me like a magnet.  I found this to be particularly ironic since, during my tenure as an high school student, math classes were particularly difficult for me to relate to the physical world that I inhabited.  Plane geometry, with its axioms and proofs, were abstract formulas to me and notions such as prime numbers, rational and irrational numbers were introduced to me as difficult concepts that were used mostly by those who possessed some secret that I wasn't privy to, at least that's how it seemed to me.

During that same year, as a ninth grader, I was encouraged by my father, to join my high school's football team and went to practice everyday without fail after school from September until the end of the season in late November.  Weighing in at 140 pounds, I was the smallest boy on the team and usually arrived home each evening pretty beat up and exhausted.  Then, after dinner, I attempted to do my homework in my room, but was afraid to ask my father for help since he had a degree as an aeronautical engineer, and managed a steel mill, a stressful career that left him with little patience for such a math novice as his son.

I remember him silently standing behind me at my desk, waiting for me to work a math problem and experiencing a paralyzing "brain freeze", a negative reaction of apprehension that was very distracting and counterproductive. It took me many years to get over feeling that way when pressed too hard to perform intellectual tasks in front of others. I realize that my late father, Bill, Sr. didn't intend that reaction in me but that's my perception of how it went.

So, I got behind in my math classes, and never really caught up again.  It seems that, at least during the time of my formal education, mathematics for me was like following the course of a railroad track - once you are off the track, it is difficult to get back on since the train keeps on going without you.

When I went to college, I stayed away from math courses because of my negative experience in high school, and had no interest, until I discovered Bucky.  Then, geometry suddenly made sense and the world opened up for me in many ways.

The following pictures are just some of the models and terrariums that I was inspired by the work of Prof. Fuller to explore and construct. His life and influence are so much more than merely the realm of his practical use of geometry, but, since he is mostly known for "inventing" the geodesic dome, I will start my re-discovery with my first mental connection to Bucky's magnificent intellect; the orderly, beautifully aesthetic regularities of polyhedra.

I built this 4 foot diameter 4 frequency icosahedron in about 1971 at my parent's home in Oakbrook, Illinois. At the time, my poor parents thought there was something seriously wrong with my brain.  I assembled this model from plastic drinking straws with cut-eraser hubs in their spare room in about 4 hours in a vain attempt at assuaging their fears.

My film-school friend Michael Simpson and I assembled this tetrahedron model on a picnic table in a park in Hollywood, California in about 1972, again from plastic drinking straws with cut-eraser hubs. When the structure was completed, it was very much stronger and rigid than one would expect from the flimsy materials from which it was made - a demonstration of synergy.

Another model made from plastic drinking straws with cut-eraser hubs was assembled in my Hollywood apartment on Gower and Hollywood Blvd. in 1971 (Notice the very tall palm trees out the window).  This one was a 4 frequency triacon icosahedron.  If you look closely you can see letters written on the straw struts to facilitate the pattern of assembly.  I loved living in this sunny apartment since it provided a bright but quiet studio-like space in the middle of the busy metropolitan environment of LA.

These models of a Plutonic polyhedra, an icosahedron on the left and an Archimedean polyhedra, a truncated octahedron on the right, built in Salt Lake City right after Anita and I married in 1973, were made of double thickness glass, copper-taped edges soldered together with lead, and sealed on the inside with silicon gel.  The soldered edges were then painted with acid creating a nice brown patina.  The icosahedron (left pic) is full of water as a leak test, and the truncated octahedron (right pic)t holds a dried flower arrangement by Anita.  We still have the little icosahedron on the left 40 years later.

Made in Salt Lake City in 1974, this was one of my favorite models. About 18 inches in diameter, the inside frame of this two frequency icosahedron was assembled from plastic drinking straws with cut-eraser hubs. The cover, made of vinyl plastic, was cut and sewn together by Anita and fit like the proverbial glove.  In this photo the model was set on a ceramic flower pot base with potted plants happily growing inside.  During the following winter in the backyard of our duplex, we dug up a small circle of earth, installed an electric heat wire in the dirt, planted some herbs and carrot seeds, and installed the little dome over it.  It lasted for about three months with the plants doing quite well during the long Rocky Mountain winter until a little four-year-old boy living next to us trudged through 4 inches of snow covering our back yard . . . and stomped our little dome.  Oh, well.

This two frequency Class 2 icosahedron terrarium featuring identical equilateral triangles, made in Salt Lake City in about 1976, had use as two separate "life zones" that housed plants and animals.  This one housed a northern forest zone that  contained a landscaped interior, small succulent plants, and brown salamanders.  The other use (no picture) was as a freshwater aquarium with simple water filtering system, and was populated with mudskippers, small air-breathing fish.  The salamanders lasted quite a while, but the mudskippers lived only a few months.

This Archimedean polyhedra called a cuboctahedron, which I built in Spokane, Washington in 2006, was the first terrarium I made after a 30-year hiatus from my hobby.  I like the copperr-colored patina on the soldered edges on this one. I sent it to my daughter Beth and her husband Chris in Pittsburg PA, but I failed to pack it well enough and, sadly, one of the glass faces cracked.

The last terrarium that I built was the most difficult to assemble. Made in Spokane, Washington in 2007, this Archimedean polyhedra, called a snub hexahedron, featuring squares and equilateral triangles, is about two feet in diameter.  Anita and I moved it with us to Central Utah in 2008, and then to Asheville, North Carolina in early 2011.  It now resides at the home of our daughter, Anna and her husband Justin here in Asheville.