Spherical Structures
Prefabricated Structures
For four generations, Spherical Prefab Structures has been designing and building energy-efficient, low-cost prefab steel structures. This web site has been created to share some of the great architectural prefab steel structures of the past and present in the hope of exciting your imagination with alternative modern prefab ideas that take advantage of the strength and efficiency of the spherical prefab steel structures.
Spherical Prefab Structures is a diversified full-service building contractor. Offering the most affordable modern prefab steel housing kits for the do-it-yourselfer and the turnkey custom home builder. From consultation to engineering and design of your prefab steel structures plans, to the manufacturing and construction of your prefab steel structures kit.
Spherical Prefab Structures specialty is spherical shaped prefab steel structures for any use, single-family homes, condominium units, multi-family homes and commercial structures with the ability of being independent, self-sustaining structures.
With the technology to create affordable, energy efficient, prefab steel structures. Spherical Prefab Structures main goal and inspiration is to build a better way of life with the use of modern materials and innovative designs. Spherical Prefab Structures prides itself in the quality of the components which have been selected to be included in our spherical prefab structures. Utilizing light gauge steel and rigid foam insulation panels, in its multi-sided spherical prefab structures.
Utilizing light gauge steel and rigid foam insulation panels, in its multi-sided spherical prefab structures. Spherical Prefab Structures continues to design and build affordable housing for as many people as possible and believes each family deserves the opportunity to participate in home ownership.
Prefab Building systems
Spherical Prefab Structures hopes to inspire a change in the way people think of pre-fabricated light gauge steel building systems and the way architects, builders, developers and financial institutions approach it and ultimately the way people live in it.
This is Spherical Prefab Structures unequally influential contributions to the modern landscape. You will find diverse design strategies and solutions applied to a variety of building types. From single-family residences to shared homes and live-in work spaces. From urban to suburban to rural locations. From year-round dwellings to seasonal or weekend homes. All in a wide range of budgets.
These light gauge steel structures are prefabricated with the flexibility to be custom prototypes. Selected for their excellence in design, innovative in the use of materials and methods of construction.
There are extraordinary examples of synthesis between manufacturing and architecture. Spherical Prefab Structures has taken advantage of industrial technologies and efficiencies with a view to make affordable and easy-to-assemble housing.
Keeping cost down has driven our interest in pre-manufacturing light gauge steel component systems and researching ways of using mass-produced components and modern technologies.
Materials that are innovative or standard materials used in innovative ways. These materials are often cost-effective, ecologically sound and energy-efficient. There are many demonstrations to the extent prefabrication techniques that can apply to architecturally designed houses.
The combination of remote locations, tight time restraints and the desire for quality outcome often lead to pre-manufactured solutions.
The knowledge that precision component parts built in a controlled environment and then transported in a protected state to a remote site for rapid installation allows you to think more freely about design.
The successful builder today has discovered the many financial and scheduling advantages of light gauge steel, pre-manufactured, component construction systems. Their costs, quality and delivery are predictable. We believe the craftsmanship, quality and customization will place our builders in the upper end of all competitors in their respective fields.
Spherical Prefab Structures hopes this is a source of inspiration for homeowners, architects and designers working in residential designs and alters the perception of low quality and poor design of prefabricated steel building systems. _____________________________
Kit Housing History
Kit housing started in the 1600's. In the early 1900's Sears & Roebuck sold over 100,000 kit homes. Pre cut materials and precise instructions created their success.
Looking like ants on a hill, massive clusters of standardized houses seems depressing. American residences have become a product, except for those of the wealthy. The reputation of the industrialized home is cheap and ugly and mimics the stick-built home. The cheapest available technology avoiding prosecution was destined for early demise.
Abbreviated cost and time appeal to builders. Often aesthetics, comfort and quality are sacrificed, but not always. There have been exceptions in history. The last century has revealed a wealth of practical, attractive alternatives to the status quo. The visions and the technologies exist. Industrialized homes have the ability to be well designed, practical, environmentally efficient and affordable. So why isn't it being built?
The majority of commercial and residential structures are pre-fabricated components. The development philosophy is rapidly transforming vivid and varied landscape with quality and distinction. Most industrialized buildings are inexpensive and functional. The projects that prevail are not innovative or attractive, but the developers and manufacturers profit.
Quite simply, pre-manufacturing is cheaper, faster and more reliable in making large-scale projects. The site and people are perceived as abstract variables - not specifically generators of form and space. The industrialized housing systems have reduced the context and dwellers to the lowest common denominator. Failing to consider the unique factors operating in a human being environment.
To go from trailer trash to trailer chic in one leap is nothing short of revolutionary. Prefab goes from ugly boring box at best, to stylish and beautiful. Spherical Prefab Structures has a new kind of prefab housing. Spherical Prefab Structures has an updated version of the dream of factory production. This time for a high style, budget conscious generation. Here are diverse projects on the cutting edge of imagination, aesthetics and technological creativity. Offering an array of affordable and distinctive alternatives.
Home owners are ready to take their housing needs into their own hands. Something simple and economically feasible, with the ability to built for a rational cost on remote sites in locations where good contractors are hard to find. Weather you are a first time homeowner looking to avoid the pitfalls of custom construction while still achieving a custom look, or a consumer hoping to construct a distinctive and possibly less expensive second home or a land owner hoping to use a languishing piece of property in an innovative way. Spherical Prefab Structures has unique entries to a growing category of home building.
Spherical Prefab Structures is one of the few pre-manufacturers that have specialists dedicated exclusively to helping you with your next prefab home or business structure. We handle everything; conceptual drawings and floor plans, design and engineering, pre-fabrication of materials, delivery and construction of your spherical light gauge steel structure, so that you save time and money.
Fullers Kit Housing History
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Buckminster Fuller spent much of the early 20th Century looking for ways to improve human shelter by:
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Applying modern technological know-how to shelter construction.
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Making shelter more comfortable and efficient.
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Making shelter more economically available to a greater number of people.
After the war, Fuller’s efforts focused on the problem of how to build a shelter which is so lightweight, it can be delivered by air. Shelter should be mobile which would require great breakthroughs in the weight-reduction of the materials. Technology would have to follow nature’s design as seen by the spider’s web which can float in a hurricane because of its high strength-to-weight ratio. New shelter would have to be designed that incorporates these principles and that was Fuller’s intent.
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THE CONCEPTS BEHIND THE DOME
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One of the ways Buckminster Fuller ("Bucky") would describe the differences in strength between a rectangle and a triangle would be to apply pressure to both structures. The rectangle would fold up and be unstable but the triangle withstands the pressure and is much more rigid, in fact the triangle is twice as strong. This principle directed his studies toward creating a new architectural design, the geodesic dome, based also upon his idea of "doing more with less." Fuller discovered that if a spherical structure was created from triangles, it would have unparalleled strength.
The sphere uses the "doing more with less" principle in that it encloses the largest volume of interior space with the least amount of surface area thus saving on materials and cost. Fuller reintroduced the idea that when the sphere’s diameter is doubled it will quadruple its square footage and produce eight times the volume.
The spherical structure of a dome is one of the most efficient interior atmospheres for human dwellings because air and energy are allowed to circulate without obstruction. This enables heating and cooling to occur naturally. Geodesic shelters have been built all around the world in different climates and temperatures and still they have proven to be the most efficient human shelter one can find. -
More specifically, the dome is energy efficient for many reasons:
The Dymaxion House in Wichita, Kansas
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In 1944, the United States suffered a serious housing shortage. Government officials knew that Fuller had developed a prototype single family dwelling which could be produced rapidly, using the same equipment which had previously built war-time airplanes.
They could be "installed" anywhere, the way a telephone is installed, and with little additional difficulty. When one official flew to Wichita, Kansas to see this house, which Beech Aircraft and Fuller built, the man reportedly gasped, "My God! This is the house of the future!"
Soon, unsolicited checks poured in from people who wanted to purchase this new kind of house, but Fuller was never able to get it into full production. This was due to many obstacles such as only union contractors were able to hook the houses up to water, power and sewers in many cities. However, because the houses were already wired and had the plumbing installed by the aircraft company, many construction trade unions made it clear that they would not work on the houses.
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its decreased surface area requires less building materials.
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exposure to cold in the winter and heat in the summer is decreased because, being spherical, there is the least surface area per unity of volume per structure.
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the concave interior creates a natural airflow that allows the hot or cool air to flow evenly throughout the dome with the help of return air ducts.
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extreme wind turbulence is lessened because the winds that contribute to heat loss flow smoothly around the dome.
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it acts like a type of giant down-pointing headlight reflector and reflects and concentrates interior heat. This helps prevent radiant heat loss.
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The net annual energy savings for a dome owner is 30% less than normal rectilinear homes according to the government studies. This is quite an improvement and helps save the environment from wasted energy. Domes have been designed by Bucky and others to withstand high winds and extreme temperatures as seen in the Polar regions.
Many dome manufacturers offer various designs in geodesic dome housing with little assembly time required. Some houses can be assembled in less than a day with others taking up to six months. Many also come in dome kits that you can build yourself or with the help of friends. The options are many. It all depends on how complex you want the design to be. Please feel free to contact: Spherical Geodesic Structures .com for more information. -
PUBLIC’S FIRST VIEW OF THE DOMES
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R. Buckminster Fuller’s first world wide acceptance by the architectural community occurred with the 1954 Triennale where his cardboard dome was displayed for the first time. The Milan (Italy) Triennale was established to stage international exhibitions aimed to present the most innovative accomplishments in the fields of design, crafts, architecture and city planning.
The theme for 1954 was Life Between Artifact and Nature: Design and the Environmental Challenge which fit in perfectly with Bucky’s work. Bucky had begun efforts towards the development of a Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science which he defined as, "the effective application of the principles of science to the conscious design of our total environment in order to help make the Earth’s finite resources meet the needs of all humanity without disrupting the ecological processes of the planet." The cardboard shelter that was part of his exhibit could be easily shipped and assembled with the directions printed right on the cardboard. The 42-foot paperboard Spherical Geodesic Structure was installed in old Sforza garden in Milan and came away with the highest award, the Gran Premio.
Fuller’s domes gained world wide attention upon his Italian premiere and by that time the U.S. military had already begun to explore the options of using domes in their military projects because they needed speedy but strong housing for soldiers overseas. With the interest of the military and coming away from the 1954 Triennale with the Gran Premio, domes began to gain in public appeal and exposure.
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A LITTLE MORE ABOUT BUCKMINSTER FULLER
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In 1927 Buckminster Fuller began a 50-year experiment using himself as the guinea pig. He proposed to discover what he, an average man with neither money, nor corporate or governmental backing could do on behalf of all humanity. Most broadly (and most ambitiously), he determined to find the principles which govern the Universe and apply them to the basic and persistent problems that plague humankind (e.g. shelter).
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A major barrier to the success of this experiment is society’s persistent assumption that needed human resources are scarce. Warfare is society’s most destructive way to defend a group’s existing resources and acquire others. Fuller sought to shift humanity’s focus away from applying its best resources to creating and refining weaponry. He sought to deploy those resources to "livingry," i.e. to the progressive betterment of all human beings through to human problems. His goal was to bring on this shift by changing the environment, not people.
With his wide experience in science, mathematics and industry (especially the building industry), Fuller saw that technology was bringing radical changes to human society and would bring many more. If and when it is fully and properly applied, Fuller was convinced it could raise 100% of humanity to a level of previously unimagined success.
Advanced technology allows people and goods to move freely around the world, increasing mobility and decreasing the traditional rootedness of human cultures. Fuller wanted to use the techniques of mass production in creating efficient affordable shelter for the millions of people who needed it around the world.
The Dymaxion House in Wichita, Kansas
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After the war, Fuller’s efforts focused on the problem of how to build a shelter which is so lightweight, it can be delivered by air. Shelter should be mobile which would require great breakthroughs in the weight-reduction of the materials. Technology would have to follow nature’s design as seen by the spider’s web which can float in a hurricane because of its high strength-to-weight ratio. New shelter would have to be designed that incorporates these principles and that was Fuller’s intent. -
THE CONCEPTS BEHIND THE DOME
-
One of the ways Buckminster Fuller ("Bucky") would describe the differences in strength between a rectangle and a triangle would be to apply pressure to both structures. The rectangle would fold up and be unstable but the triangle withstands the pressure and is much more rigid, in fact the triangle is twice as strong. This principle directed his studies toward creating a new architectural design, the geodesic dome, based also upon his idea of "doing more with less." Fuller discovered that if a spherical structure was created from triangles, it would have unparalleled strength.
The sphere uses the "doing more with less" principle in that it encloses the largest volume of interior space with the least amount of surface area thus saving on materials and cost. Fuller reintroduced the idea that when the sphere’s diameter is doubled it will quadruple its square footage and produce eight times the volume.
The spherical structure of a dome is one of the most efficient interior atmospheres for human dwellings because air and energy are allowed to circulate without obstruction. This enables heating and cooling to occur naturally. Geodesic shelters have been built all around the world in different climates and temperatures and still they have proven to be the most efficient human shelter one can find. -
More specifically, the dome is energy efficient for many reasons:
Spherical Prefab Structures is a diversified full-service building contractor. Offering the most affordable modern prefab housing kits for the do-it-yourselfer and the turnkey custom home builder. From consultation to design and engineering structural plans, to the manufacturing and construction of your prefabricated kit.
Spherical Prefab Structures specialty is spherical shaped prefab structures for any use, single-family homes, condominium units, multi-family homes and commercial structures with the ability of being independent, self-sustaining structures.
With the technology to create affordable, energy efficient, prefab structures. Spherical Prefab Structures main goal and inspiration is to build a better way of life with the use of modern materials and innovative designs. Spherical Prefab Structures prides itself in the quality of the components which have been selected to be included in our spherical structures.
Spherical Prefab Structures continues to design and build affordable housing for as many people as possible and believes each family deserves the opportunity to participate in home ownership.