Architecture

1st Nov 2023

The future of architecture

Monolithic Domes: Quite Possibly the World’s Safest Severe Weather Buildings

A Monolithic Dome starts as a concrete ring foundation, reinforced with steel rebar. For smaller domes, an integrated floor and ring foundation may be used. Vertical steel bars embedded in the ring beam footing are later attached to the steel, reinforcing the dome itself. The Airform, fabricated to a proper shape and size, is attached to the concrete base. Using fans, the Airform is inflated – creating the shape of the dome. The Airform is both the form for construction of the dome and the outer roof membrane of the shell when it is finished. The inflator fans run throughout the construction of the dome shell. Approximately three inches of polyurethane foam insulation is applied to the interior surface of the Airform.

Monolithic Domes are constructed following a patented method that requires a tough, inflatable Airform, steel-reinforced concrete and a polyurethane foam insulation. Each of these ingredients is used in a technologically specific way.
- The Monolithic Dome starts as a concrete ring foundation, reinforced with steel rebar. Vertical steel bars embedded in the ring later attached to the steel reinforcing of the dome itself. Small domes may use an integrated floor/ring foundation. Otherwise, the floor is poured after completion of the dome.
- An Airform – fabricated to the proper shape and size – is placed on the ring base. Using blower fans, it is inflated and the Airform creates the shape of the structure to be completed. The fans run throughout construction of the dome.
- Polyurethane foam is applied to the interior surface of the Airform. Entrance into the air-structure is made through a double door airlock which keeps the air-pressure inside at a constant level. Approximately three inches of foam is applied. The foam is also the base for attaching the steel reinforcing rebar.
- Steel reinforcing rebar is attached to the foam using a specially engineered layout of hoop (horizontal) and vertical steel rebar. Small domes need small diameter bars with wide spacing. Large domes require larger bars with closer spacing.
- Shotcrete – a special spray mix of concrete – is applied to the interior surface of the dome. The steel rebar is embedded in the concrete and when about three inches of shotcrete is applied, the Monolithic Dome is finished. The blower fans are shut off after the concrete is set.
  
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  "And She Was" written by David Byrne in 1985
  
  I used to know a blissed-out hippie-chick in Baltimore," recalled Byrne in the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads. "She once told me that she used to do acid (the drug, not music) and lay down on the field by the Yoo-hoo chocolate soda factory. Flying out of her body, etc etc. It seemed like such a tacky kind of transcendence… but it was real! A new kind of religion being born out of heaps of rusted cars and fast food joints. And this girl was flying above it all, but in it too.

Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and the "father of modernism". The phrase "Form follows function" is attributed to him, although he credited the origin of the concept to an ancient Roman architect. wikipedia

"Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling. It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law." Louis Henry Sullivan

We Know Domes – Hire Monolithic Today Monolithic® Office – Italy, Texas USA The Monolithic Construction Crew has combined experience of over 45 years. Hector Sanchez, Jeff Evans, Andres Garcia, Javier Chaire, and Javier Figueroa (pictured left to right) .

And She Was
Talking Heads

Hey!
And she was lying in the grass
And she could hear the highway breathing
And she could see a nearby factory
She's making sure she is not dreaming

See the lights of a neighbor's house
Now she's starting to rise
Take a minute to concentrate
And she opens up her eyes

The world was moving she was right there with it and she was
The world was moving she was floating above it and she was
And she was

And she was drifting through the backyard
And she was taking off her dress
And she was moving very slowly
Rising up above the earth

Moving into the universe and she's
Drifting this way and that
Not touching the ground at all and she's
Up above the yard

The world was moving, she was right there with it and she was
(Hey, hey)
The world was moving, she was floating above it and she was
(Hey, hey, hey)

She was proud about it, no doubt about it
She isn't sure about what she's done
No time to think about what to tell him
No time to think about what she's done and she was
(Hey hey, hey hey, hey)

And she was looking at herself
And things were looking like a movie
She had a pleasant elevation
She's moving out in all directions oh, oh oh

Hey, hey, hey
Hey-hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey-hey hey!

The world was moving, she was right there with it and she was
(Hey, woo hoo)
The world was moving, she was floating above it and she was
(Hey, hey)

Joining the world of missing persons and she was
Missing enough to feel all right and she was

And she was
And she was
And she was
And she was
And she was
Hey!
And she was!
And she was
And she was!

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