Stuff You Should Know - Geodesic Domes: The Wave of the Future That Wasn't

Episode Date: December 18, 2018

Sometimes a good idea doesn’t pan out in real life. Take Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome: It requires less energy to heat and cool, it’s cheap, and it’s durable enough to withstand a hurricane – but it’s also godawful ugly and that was its undoing. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to HeyDude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm British Josh. There's American Chuck and there's neutral Switzerland Jerry, which by the way, now we're saying Switzerland. Switzerland? Just decided because it's close to the end of the year and I'm about to die of exhaustion. I love it on the Friendly Fire movie podcast, Ben Harrison. He says Nazis instead of Nazis. That's like a throwback.

It's like a greatest generation way of saying it. And I know he does it as an affectation. But now I got it from him and he got it from God knows where. His great-grandpa. Maybe. Nazis. Yeah. That's a pretty great way to say it.

Because there's a lot of occasion to say the word Nazi. Sure. A lot. How do you mention this? And why did you say you were British? Because I, Chuck, say geodesic and you say geodesic and we just looked it up. Which I mean, that's like the first time in years. The lady said geodesic and I was like, yes, I'm right.

Or in America, geodesic. And I said, we're both right. But then she didn't say though it was British. It could be like whatever South African. Oh, I guess so. Africaner. Well, Africaner is not English. Well, yeah, you know what I mean.

We are so far off course already. Jerry's just got ramen coming through her nose. She thought that was so funny. Thanks for the laugh, Jerry. Well, we are talking about geodesic desic. Maybe we should just say that every time. Say them both. I'm sure people would love that.

I'm going to say geodesic because that's what I've always said. Okay. Great. I'm going to say geodesic. That's fine. We're talking about domes. Geodesic domes. And if you have ever seen a weird contraption of a circular house, a ball house, you might

call it, a sphere house, you've seen a geodesic dome. If you've ever been to Epcot, you've seen a geodesic dome. They're all over the place. All right. Do you like these like people's houses in a neighborhood or wherever? No. I don't either. But I don't, I mean, I'm not going to yuck anybody's yom.

You know what I'm saying? No. I mean, when reading and researching and like they're cool and there are a lot of like great advantages that will go over, but I just don't care for them aesthetically. I don't either. And actually, if you read a quote from Buckminster Fuller, the guy who actually didn't invent geodesic domes, we'll get into all that anyway. He said one of the reasons they never took off is because they're weird looking.

They just are. And well, I'm not going to say that. I really, you tell me later, okay? Yeah, I just don't care for them. It's like I'm a craftsman, California craftsman bungalow type guy, which is about the opposite of a geodesic dome. It's pretty angular for sure. And the geodesic dome is angular.

Everybody put your laptops away, geometry nerds. But it's not rectangular and a craftsman is definitely rectangular. I think you can even make a case the roof is not a triangle. It's a rectangle on its side. I just made that case. How's it going? Yeah. Pretty good.

I also, although I probably will never live in one, I do love a modern, like a mid-century modern. That's my thing. I love it, but it's not really like ultimately where I would want to live for the rest of my life. Well, okay, so I don't want to feel like I'm like in Finland in the winter or something like that. That's not, I'm talking mid-century American actually built for a family in like the mid-50s,

early 60s. I love it. That has all little cool details and built-ins and a wall that doesn't even really need to be there. You can see right through it because it's like wood spindles and stuff. That's what I like. Yeah, me too. Not ultra modern, mid-century modern.

Yeah. Okay. Mid-sinch. Yeah. Mid-sinch. Because you're such a craftsman guy? We'd have to get all new stuff. If we started over, if our God forbid, if our house burned down and we lost everything,

I could start over like that, but the stuff that we have doesn't fit like grandma's antique bar doesn't really go in that setting. I've seen that bar and that thing is classic. Thank you. You could put it anywhere. Grandma was a bit of a boozehound, huh? Well, they didn't use it as a bar. They had like humble figurines and stuff.

Wow. I saw it. It was funny. When I first saw it, I was like, oh God, I don't really want that and they're giving it to us. Then we turned it to a bar and I was like, it's amazing what 30 liquor bottles will do to it. Exactly.

You can really dress up a humble figurine cabinet. Clearly, we're talking again about geodesic domes. There was a period in Time Check where you could go into some neighborhoods around the country and you could find well-to-do hippie types, environmental types, back-to-earthers living in these geodesic domes. It's not like they were living in a tent. It was their house. Yeah.

They had plumbing and heating and electricity and all this stuff. It's just that it was a dome. Yeah. There was one near where I grew up actually and we would pass it going to elementary school. Really? It was always just sort of like, you know, there's those weirdos that built the weird house.

Isn't it interesting though? Yeah. That had some impact on who you are today. Yeah, probably. No matter how minute or how small, but seeing that every day or every weekday, that had to have some impact on you. Yeah. And there was also one of those, it was also partially underground even.

So there was an exposed dome but then it was sort of built into a hill and so they were full-on. They had a lot of hippie creds. Yeah. They were going for it. And looking back, they were probably super cool people. Probably. And they were wearing Birkenstocks way before anybody else was wearing Birkenstocks.

So let's talk a little bit about the first geodesic dome, a little geodesic history. Okay? Okay. All right. You have to go way back, way, way back to 1926. And not only do we have to go back, we have to go to Germany, Jenna, Germany. I don't know where that is. I don't either.

But there is a very famous optics company called Zeiss. I do know that. Sure. Zeiss wanted to build a planetarium on top of one of their factories, their factory at Gena Germany. And they said, please build us a planetarium, Walter Bowersfield, where if you didn't know if he was German or not, just listen to his name. Feld.

Feld, even more German. And he said, sure. Let me think about this and I'll see what I can come up with. And he came up with what's widely pointed to as the world's first geodesic dome. Yeah. And it was a good idea for this project in particular because they needed it to be light because it had to go on top of a roof. They needed it to hold a lot of people.

And obviously, because it was a planetarium, that interior roundness was kind of key. It would be weird to have a square planetarium. It would, especially if you're like, I didn't know Venus could take a corner like that. I didn't know he could do that. Right. So, that's what he did and it really worked well. It did house a lot of people, I mean not house, but it could hold a lot of people. It can withstand storms and these are some of the factors that make them not only popular,

but a good idea depending on where you are. If you're in Antarctica, they have them there and it's perfect for that kind of weather. Yeah. If you're in time, which we'll see in a second where geodesic domes were like the house of the future. Yeah. It was a very, very good idea that never took off because everybody said, no, we think those are kind of weird.

Yeah. We don't feel comfortable with that. Pretty much. So, Bowersfeld's planetarium actually kicked off a planetarium craze. It was apparently the first planetarium on Earth, which I would make the case that you can just say the first planetarium in the universe then. Probably so. But because there were people who started to build planetariums as a result of this,

geodesic domes kind of became a thing, but it wasn't until a guy named Richard Buckminster Fuller of Carbondale, Illinois came along and actually patented the geodesic dome that they really became that house of the future thing that I was talking about. Yeah. And he was an engineer and a sort of a visionary thinker, one of the great Americans, I think. We could do a show on him all together, I think. Agreed. But his whole jam was like, well, first of all, he saw the inherent like good points

to these and we'll get into all those. But first and foremost, you can have a huge volume of space with very little materials, very lightweight materials, and it's still be super strong, which is awesome. But so, because of this, he thought like he had a higher goal in mind, which was like the housing in the future, like they don't cost that much money. They can hold people safely, and like this is how we should think about housing. Right. You could build it off-site at a factory and deliver it by helicopter, it was that light.

Yeah. Kind of put it together, but like a kit. Yep. And like you were saying, it required, because it could withstand more weight, it required less building materials, which meant it was lower cost. And supposedly, you could put these things like a good kit together in a day if you were really cruising along at a good clip. Sure.

You had some high-grade 60-speed. Right. Exactly. Give it to all your friends and neighbors. Couple of friends. Yeah. Man, you got me with that one. So this just became plainly obvious that this is going to be the house of the future.

One of the other things about it is there is no other building structure that has a larger volume of space with the least amount of surface area. Yeah. And he got this idea through looking at nature. He very famously looked at things like crystals and seed pods and things like that and thought like, you know, nature, and a lot of people do this in design. They looked at nature because nature has sort of proven to get it right usually over the years.

Yeah. They were like, this thing shouldn't withstand anything and yet it does and it's a very curious thing. But it sure looks like it could slip out of a chicken's butt with ease. Right. You know. It's just kind of what it does. Like what if it was square?

It slips out of the cloaca. It's true. So Bucky Fuller, as he's known, he apparently, I don't know if he wasn't aware of Bowersfeld's design or something. Did you get that impression? I don't know. I couldn't tell if this was nefarious. He seemed like a good guy, so I don't think he like stole this idea.

Right. But he was able to secure a patent. He did. And there's a really great time article, if you can find it, it's called Dimexian American. Dimexian was a word that was associated with him. He just made up words a lot. But it tells it, it's from 1964. It says that he was trying to figure out a geometry of energy and he was using spheres

as a model of energy, no idea. But he was putting spheres together and his idea was that when you put spheres together, they would just make a larger and larger sphere. But that's not what happened. He took a central sphere and put other spheres around it and pushed it together. And what he found was that it started to make squares and triangles rather than a larger sphere. And he figured out that what he had just come up with was actually a very smart structure

that you could take those squares and divide those into triangles and you could take the triangles and divide the triangles into even smaller triangles. And if you kind of curve the edges of the triangles inward towards some imaginary center inside the sphere, you actually create a sphere. And technically it's a polyhedron and most geodesic domes are acossahedrons, which if you play Dungeons and Dragons, it's just a 20-sided die. But the more you cut the sides into smaller and smaller triangles, the closer to an actual perfect sphere you get.

And that's a geodesic sphere. And if you cut it in half or cut a portion of it and just use one half of it, that's a geodesic dome. Yeah, which is what you see like, it's not fully round because it has to be flat and sit on something. Right. Well, actually the Spaceship Earth geodesic dome is a full sphere, but that is pretty rare. And I thought it was interesting too that they said that if you were just designing

something on paper, you could just design it bigger and bigger and it would just get stronger and stronger. But in reality, that's really not the case. Like when rubber meets the road, there's really only so big you can kind of get. Yeah, because I had no idea about this. You know, I was roughly familiar with geodesic domes, I didn't know any details. But one thing that I was surprised to find is that the triangles are not all the same size.

Yeah. They have to be adjusted to make this shape, to make this circle or this sphere. So if you're putting together one of these things as we'll see, you have to be like, oh, this struck goes here, not here. And I actually put it here up on the top and now I have to go take the whole thing apart again. Right. Yeah.

The less complex, the better in practicality. But yeah, you can really mess with it to make it virtually a perfect sphere out of triangles. Yeah. And you mentioned a minute ago that, and I think people that pay attention were probably like, oh, Josh is so funny. Or what did he just say? Did Buck Minister Fuller make up words? Yeah.

He did. Because he made up another word when it comes to these domes, tinsigrity. Which is not a good word. It's not. They mix two words together, a tensional and integrity. And so that's the relationship between the tension and compression. And that really kind of describes how these things fit together and why they end up being super strong.

Even though when you look at it, you're like, man, I could blow that thing over. Right. So let's take a break and then we'll get into like the actual dynamics going on, okay? Angiometry? Yes. Promise? Yes. Hey, friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place

be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you.

Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step, not another one, kids, relationships, life in general

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How'd you do in geometry? I failed the first time, ace to the second time. I'm actually really glad that I failed it because when I was forced to take it again by the man. Uh-huh. And this is high school, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Um, I, it clicked and I've never understood any field of math like I understood geometry. I don't quite remember it now, but like I understood geometry. Yeah. Like I was Pythagoras is like brother. I kind of, I wasn't quite at that level, but I feel like, because I'm, I have long sort of poo pooed the maths. Yeah. But you've rejected that, right?

Well, yeah, but I mean just for my, my P brain, like understanding it, I understood geometry more than all the other math and I did okay in it for, for an English nerd. Yeah. You know? Good enough. You didn't actually fail. It's completely different than anything else. I feel like in that.

Geometry does seem like its own thing for sure. Very much it's own thing. Like, yeah, there's numbers and Sigma makes an appearance and stuff like that, but it definitely seems to be, it's different than algebra. I'll tell you that buddy. Shout out to Ms. Karn. Read and high school. Well, I wish I could remember my geometry teacher, the one it clicked with.

She was great. She was one of those teachers that's like, was 70 years old from the time that she was 28 until the time she was 70. She was great. And then she turned back into 28. Yeah. She, I remember she had this polka dot, it's funny, the things that you remember. She had this polka dot shirt where all the polka dots were collected at the bottom and

she said that it used to be all over, but she hung it up to dry. That was her big joke. It's a great joke. She's like, welcome to my class. It's the only joke of the year. Let's get busy. Yeah. I bet you there's one person out there who had Ms. Karn and knows that shirt.

Yeah. I hope. It's a great joke, Ms. Karn. Okay. So we're talking geometry, right? Yeah. Do you remember our bridges episode? Yeah.

Remember when we talked about bridge trusses, the bridges that are made up of triangular shapes? And we said like, those things are extraordinarily strong because they're triangles. Yeah, man, triangles. Same thing here. You can't beat them. A geodesic dome or sphere is a sphere made up of triangles. And if you actually take the triangular shape and build one in reality, it is one of the

strongest shapes you can create because wherever you press on it, it transfers that pressure that force to the rest of the shape. So it distributes that kind of weight or pressure or force or whatever you want to lay on it. It distributes it evenly. And if you put another triangle together with one triangle, it sends it to the other triangle too. And so the more triangles you add, the more a force is distributed throughout it. Yeah.

And that's basically it. That's why it's so strong. Like what you were saying, like you look at it and you're like, I can blow that over. You might be able to push it over and make it roll away if it's a sphere, but you probably could not break it. Yeah. And if you look at like, if you're inside one of these, it's usually covered with like wood or drywall or something, so it's not as evident, but on the outside, you generally

can still see this frame of triangles all fitting together beautifully to make something super, super strong. Yes. And apparently the strongest version of a geodesic dome or sphere is one that's actually made not just out of triangles, but out of pyramids. Oh, interesting. If you look at the EPCOT Spaceship Earth geodesic sphere, it's actually pyramids. All the triangles are actually pyramids.

Oh, really? Yeah. That's it. That's the money geodesic dome. Yeah. And that one, since we're on that, is interesting in that one of the downfalls, and we'll go over it more later, but one of the downfalls of geodesic domes is sometimes rain doesn't treat them well.

But the one at EPCOT was just like, we're not even going to pretend that we want to repel the rain. They have little grooves that actually collect the rain and that send it to one of those little corny lagoons. I love those lagoons. I know. I love everything about EPCOT. I haven't been since I was in seventh grade.

It's great. I mean, did they update it or is it still very much like the world of tomorrow today? No, they've updated it. I mean, the whole thing is still like that, but there's newer stuff. There's a really cool ride, an immersive ride called Soarin, where you get lifted up and you're in front of this huge giant curved movie screen and you're like Soarin through the world, like a world tour. It's really neat.

And did they move your little thing around so you feel like you're... You definitely feel like you're Soarin through there. Yeah. That's like when they debuted that back to the future ride years ago. Was it like that? Yeah. And then it's on hydraulics and it's like moving all around. But it's a movie screen in front of you?

Yeah. And you're going through, but it's amazing how accurate they can sync that up to where you really feel like. Right. Like I remember there was at one point where the car was on the edge of a cliff and it was sort of teetering and it got really quiet and then it teetered over and then the car just stopped moving and he felt like you were falling. Wow.

Just because it stopped moving. Right. And if you like turned around and looked backwards, you're like, everyone's freaking out and you're just sitting in a car doing nothing. Yeah. But everybody's going... Oh, it was so great. Nice.

I loved it. So we were saying like this thing pops up all over nature. Yeah. The Geodesic Dome did. This Time Magazine article put it really beautifully that it was like Buckminster Fuller had discovered a signature of God. Whoa. This made scare quotes.

Yeah. Because it... Around God or signature? Hitted the whole thing. Yes, it is such like an efficient structure that can support a lot of weight. You do see it in things like eggs, the cornea, the testicle, which I'm like, really, I guess so. I couldn't find that anywhere else.

And I definitely typed testicle geodesic dome into Google and it didn't really come back with anything, but this 1964 Time article says it so it's so. Well, the dome period is a pretty strong structure. The Romans were building really big, strong domes a long, long time ago, but they don't stay strong for long. That's sort of one of the problems with a dome, just a regular dome, is that you need a lot of super heavy supporting materials and walls to keep it up. And over time, they wear out, but what Fuller did was took that sort of same principle and

applied this geometry to it and these triangles that the Romans didn't think of. And the rest is history, I guess. Yeah. What he found was that when you put these spheres together, you created what he called a vector equilibrium, the outward force of the thing that's trying to collapse it. You know how like if you could press down on the roof of a house, it would collapse outward to the sides? Yes.

Same thing wants to happen to geodesic dome, but in a geodesic dome, that pressure outward from the force of gravity. Makes it stronger. It's actually equal to the force that's being distributed around it, the circumferential force. And since they're equal in equal measures, they cancel each other out. So it's just like the thing is gravity free. Yeah.

I mean, you definitely see why he was like, this is the house of the future because they were cheap, they were strong, they were lightweight. And you know, they distribute like heat just blows around them because they're around. They're really efficient to heat and cool. There are a lot of really great advantages to them. Yeah. And so when he, I can't remember when he made his first one. I think it was at a world's fair.

Was that the Montreal? Was that the first one? No. Montreal was 67. This one would have been in Moscow. 54? Well, that's when he got his patent. Yeah.

It would have been before that or right around the same time. But in 59, yeah, I guess the first one must have been Ford. The Ford plant. Yeah. The Ford Motor Company wanted covering and he said, well, I think this is the trick. And he built it. He was like, I can, and this is what Ford wants to hear or any company. Right.

He was like, it'll be better and cheaper and I'll get it done faster than any of these other schmucks. And so bear in mind that when Ford called them from Dearborn, Michigan, that they, no one had ever come up with this before. They thought since they wanted to enclose their courtyard, the central courtyard in this rotunda that they built, that it was going to have to be a traditional dome with buttresses and supports and like heavy walls and all that. The problem was is because the courtyard was so far across, I think it was more than 30

meters, 90 feet across, anything that they built would probably collapse the walls of this very sturdy rotunda building. So they had a problem. And when they called Buckminster Fuller, I don't know how, who got in touch with who? It was pretty brazen for him to say what you said he said that he can get this done below cost in time, it's going to be super light. And he proved the world wrong, his doubters wrong at least. And he built the first geodesic dome over it and it was pretty awesome.

Also, we didn't mention he was a freshman college dropout. So he's self-taught and he just came along and showed the world of engineering basically a brand new type of structure, an incredibly elegantly efficient type of structure. He just showed the world it could be done. Yeah. Some people are just born with like a certain kind of brain. That's why he deserves his own episode for sure. So the Ford dome was great for a while until 1962 when it was leaking.

And they said, hey, this thing's leaking. We need to do some repair work. So they were doing that and they were waterproofing and weatherproofing the panels and they were using a waterproof see-through transparent waterproof sealer. But to make it easier to spray, they heated it up, which makes sense. But unfortunately, those vapors ignited from a propane heater, this thing caught on fire. And I get the idea that it was like, the whole thing was done in like an hour. Yeah.

Because they sealed a lot of it with the waterproofing, the highly flammable waterproofing stuff. So when a little bit caught, those vapors caught, the whole dome caught fire. And it was made of like aluminum and plastic. So it just went up like a match. And they were decorating for the Christmas fantasy exhibit below in the courtyard. All that stuff caught on fire. It burned the whole rotunda down. It was huge building.

I imagine there's nothing more flammable than Christmas decorations in the early 1960s. No way. Not a chance. Yeah. It was really sad. Everyone got out of there, which is good. But by the time the fire department got there, it was too late. It was toast.

So again. 50-foot flames. Like I can't imagine what that scene looked like. And it burned the whole building down. Oh yeah. It was actually a tourist attraction. Imagine going to Dearborn, Michigan. To see the Ford Dome.

Yes. That's what people did. I think it'd seen like 18 million visitors in like it's 20 or 30 years of operation. And this waterproofing fix burned the whole thing down at Christmas time. So this, I love how this article kind of brushes over. It says, no matter, Buck Mr. Fuller's Geodesic Dome had shown that it could be done. Yeah. It bears a little more digging in than that.

For sure. But it is true. Like he had shown the world, there's this thing and we should start making them because they are efficient, cheap, affordable, and highly transportable. And apparently next, the next people to call was the military because they wanted to start using them as like Antarctic bases or to cover radar dishes, that kind of thing. Yeah. He very famously too in 1967 at, no, was this the World's Fair or is this a different

thing? No. They just didn't call it World's Fair, right? Yeah. The Universal Exposition in Montreal in 67 very famously had a 200 foot tall dome. And he was really trying to push the limits of what you could do. Like he dreamed of enclosing part of Manhattan in a dome and saying, we could give you clean air and climate control and it'll pay for itself over time because you won't have to

use snow plows and all these other like things that cost money. It seems ghastly, almost like a Bernesean type of idea. Well, I mean, there would definitely be a certain class of people that lived in that thing. Yeah, but it's really... I doubt if he'd be like, we'll do it over all of Queens. Well, yeah, it was lower. It was 22nd to 62nd, I think, from river to river in Manhattan.

Wow. It was going to be huge. And he did say it could pay for itself just from snow removal, not having to do snow removal, but imagine not having precipitation ever. I know. It's wrong. There's something wrong with that, but it really captures the can-do engineering spirit of mid-century America, for sure.

Yeah. I mean, you can do a cool experiment with like a biosphere type of thing, but you don't want Manhattan covered by a dome. No. You know? All the smells. Maybe Topeka or something like that. And that's one of the problems is all the smells, apparently, like they just fill up

that dome. There's nothing to stop it. Right. It's just accumulating at the top and eventually exploding. Yeah. No good. The ghostbusters running around shooting off proton packs inside that thing? No good.

Man, that's been a while since a GB ref. Should we take a break? All right. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. This me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids relationships life in general can

get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so tell everybody everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. You love movies or maybe just the need of some recommendations on what new movies to watch next time you sit down in front of the TV. Well I have the podcast for you. Hey this is Mike D for movie Mike's movie podcast. Your go to source for all things movies and no matter the genre of what you're into whether it be comedies romance action sci-fi horror superhero movies I cover it all. I'm no critic.

I'm just a guy who loves movies. Each episode explores a different movie topic plus spoiler free reviews on the latest new movies in theaters and on streaming. And yes they're always spoiler free so you don't have to worry about anything getting ruined for you. Plus interviews with actors directors and writers covering the behind the scenes of your favorite movies. I also keep you in the know with all the latest movie news and movie trailers. Listen to new episodes of movie Mike's movie podcast every Monday on the Nashville podcast network available on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right so the 60s and 70s come along he's been doing a sing in the 50s. And this is

when the the counterculture and the anti mainstream sort of vibe was hitting. And so it was sort of prime. It was sort of primed for these things to come into fashion and they did just for regular old houses. Yeah not they didn't sweep the nation. No but you know there were enough people looking to for ways to very blatantly thumb their nose at the establishment. Look at my roundhouse. Basically yeah. And again like it really does. It does provide a lot of benefits that other ones don't right. So like because it's a it's a sphere and it's basically one big room. Yeah well yes but you can build rooms inside of it. You can't sure. But the heat in the air distribution is really efficient. So it's very cheap to

heat and cool. I think that the average number that people reported was about a 30 percent savings in energy costs. That sounds totally made up. It does. But I saw as high as 50 and it seems like the world said no we'll go with 30. We'll go with the low that seems believable. And so you've got heating and cooling efficiencies like you were saying because it's round it's not trying to stop wind like cool wind hot wind when it runs into your house if it's a rectangular house craftsman mid-century modern who cares. It runs into it and it's going to transfer heat or cold into your house. Yeah in my case right through my windows. And okay yeah it's a great great example. The thing is is you don't want that

heater that cool in there usually. So you're going to have to spend a lot of money to artificially pump it out right. Yeah. Through AC. With a geodesic dome the wind kind of just moves around it. It's super aerodynamic. So it's not just running into this flat surface and trying to go through. It's just like excuse me I'll just go around. Yeah and that's why they're great in Antarctica. They can withstand whatever kind of weather they throw they Antarctica is they. And I have seen some of these at the beach. Again they're not like the coolest looking beach house but you see them you know you'll see like quaint old beach house Cape Cod geodesic dome. Yeah. And then like McMansion and I imagine they do very well at the beach.

Yeah because after a hurricane if a hurricane is bad enough you see empty lot empty lot geodesic dome empty lot. And apparently that's anecdotal but that's been reported that geodesic domes can make it through substantial hurricanes when the rest of the houses around it did not. Yeah it makes sense. Some of the disadvantages is like we're joking about the smell but it's really true smell and sound if you've just got a big globe that you're inside are really going to move around. There's not a ton of privacy even though you can build out sort of like living in a loft you know you can build out rooms. Right. But if your rooms don't have a ceiling although I guess you could do that too. You could but then you're

like well you know. Like why am I even in a dome. Right exactly. Light as well. That's a big one. Yeah. You know like the little light on your router that's like really bright at night. Oh God. Imagine that just being distributed throughout your entire house. Yeah no good. No that's not a good one plus I mean if you look at any piece of furniture that's ever been created in the history of humanity it's all meant for rectangular structures. Yeah unless it's some sort of custom piece for a geodesic dome. Which is very expensive. Yeah you have to get all this stuff made yourself and the same goes true for like the construction world is set up for square. Right. So fixtures and plumbing and pipes and all that stuff

has to be sort of and contractors get scared away from these things. Oh yeah they won't come near it. Yeah unless you're just a specialist. Sure and you're probably like the highest paid contractor in the world. Yes. Who works like once a year. Yes. But those same disadvantages are also advantages right. Like you have a lot more floor space. Yeah but sometimes it's wasted. It can be. Like if you've got a big long couch you've got a bunch of space behind it that's just sitting there. A little semi circle behind you. That's why a lot of and I think this is the reason why I'm not super hip on geodesic domes is a lot of the stuff is just kind of out in the center of the room. Right. Right. And it looks adrift

or unanchored. That's a good thing about a wall or a corner or something like that it provides a visual anchor to your stuff. No one can sneak up on you. No it's another maybe that's why I don't like it. I'm like what's behind me. Do you like your back against the wall in a restaurant. No I don't care about that. Oh man. Do you. Yeah. Really you're afraid you're going to what are you a gangster or something. No I don't think I'm going to get whacked. It's just I just feel exposed and Emily is very sweet. She's usually like go ahead and take the seat but lately she's been like no that's mine. Oh yeah. Yeah. Wow what'd you do. Nothing man. It's just the time we're living in. She's doing it. So do

you sit there and like turn around every time somebody comes in. The waiter comes in and punch him around and punch him. Don't touch my stuff. Rain we talked about rain. It can be problematic and it says in here that flat roofs are the best. What they mean are flat roofs at an angle because a truly flat roof is the worst. It's not good. Frank Lloyd Wright did a bunch of those and they were his houses could be very problematic. He had a very famous exchange. I can't remember the person but it was some very, very wealthy sort of noteworthy person. Frank Lloyd Wright built him a house and he called and complained and said the water is now dripping onto my desk and supposedly Frank Lloyd Wright said move the desk. That

sounds like Frank Lloyd Wright. Yeah. For sure. I don't know if that's a true story but I love it. I guarantee it's true. Yeah. So with the shingled roof even with the flat roof like a flat roof is not moving water but it's probably not coming down. There's not as many places for it to come down. With a geodesic dome every place where your struts, the sides of the triangle come together at an angle at the nodes there is a point where water can get in and actually it can get in along where one triangle goes into another. There's a lot of places for water to penetrate the geodesic dome. It's a water nightmare from what I can tell. Well, it's put together from a lot of little panels. Yeah. So let's

just really briefly say that. So one of the reasons why people were crazy for geodesic domes is you could put them together like we said in a day. Yeah. You can get a color coded kit. You still can. Yeah. And there are companies out there that will send them to you and you can get your friends, get some good 60 speed and a case of beer or two and build your house in a couple of days. Yeah. And not sleep the entire time. That's right. So when you put these things together, you're building the structure and then you're coding the structure. It can be one kit I saw as a greenhouse. It's a really great greenhouse. I bet. If you've ever been on a jungle gym that was built after the 60s, you know those

dome ones. The best. This is geodesic dome. Yeah. But what the structure can be made from like a hollow tubing or two by fours, whatever. It can be wood. It can be whatever. And then usually the outside, the triangles that fill in over the structure are concrete or plastic or plywood or something like that. Yeah. And then you want to code it. But all those different seals or those different seams, they're all just water heaven, which is again a big problem. Probably problem number one, practically speaking. Yeah. It's interesting now that I think about it. It's sort of how tent design has gone over the years. Tents used to be just like camping tents, just like triangles, like a pup tent. And then the big

dome tents came into fashion. And then I think the secret was to try and make dome tents with as few seams as possible. Yeah. Because that's where your water gets in. Yeah. And as few poles too. Yeah. Just a couple of, and then maybe a, and then there you go. You got your tent. You could be a tent designer. I want to go ahead and trademark what I just said. Okay. Should we talk about some famous domes? I think we should. Because that's always the best part. There's the Expo 67 one, that by the way, burned as well. Oh, really? Is it not there anymore? No, the structure stayed. They turned it into a biosphere in the 90s, I believe. Oh, so Brendan Frazier lives in there. In Polly Shore. And Stephen Baldwin?

Sure. Man alive. That's where he's been. There is the, and these to me, like if you look up the, how do you pronounce the one in Japan? The Fukuoka Yahoo Oku Dome. I was at the full name. Yahoo Oku with an exclamation point because Yahoo got the naming rights. Yeah. So that is a baseball stadium. But when you look at these, like I don't, like to me, I think of Epcot. Yes. When you look at this baseball stadium, it doesn't feel, I mean, it is a geodesic dome, but it just doesn't feel like that kind of futuristic, like highly paneled triangular thing. Well, what's cool about it is the dome part actually retracts. Yeah, retractable roof. In like 20 minutes. And the reason it retracts so quickly is because

it's so lightweight comparatively speaking. Yeah. So it's pretty sweet. There's the Tacoma Dome. Yeah, which is a wood dome that just does not sound sturdy to me. Yeah. What was it? Oh, our skyscrapers episode. Yeah, I remember. That new wood skyscraper somewhere. Why do I want to say like Nebraska? I thought that was Japan too. Oh, was it? I think so. It's one of the two. Right. It's easy to get them confused. Osaka, Nebraska. Right. They sound alike. Yeah. The Tacoma Dome is where the Sonics used to play. They're like, Kevin Durant's going to love this. Oh man. So sad. I wonder when a team leaves, I've always wondered if they just, because I know like when the Browns left and became the Ravens, you know,

my stepfather was like, they were just dead to me. Wait, what? Yeah, that's where the Ravens came from. They were the Cleveland Browns. Were the Browns aren't playing still? No, no, no. The Browns had no, there were no Browns for years. Okay. And then they came back and said, we'll give you a team again, Cleveland. And you can be the Browns again. Gotcha. But he, Art Modell, literally famously packed up in the middle of the night, like their footage of 18 Wheeler trucks at like 2 a.m., like hauling stuff. Yeah. You don't want to leave Cleveland. Ask LeBron. But they were dead to him after that. And I always wonder like if the Falcons left Atlanta and went to Birmingham, they'd still be the same guys.

I wouldn't be like, no, screw that team. No, that's definitely how I went with the Sonics for sure. Seattle was not very happy about that. No, they weren't not. But supposedly they're going to get another team. One of the Microsoft founders, I guess Wozniak is talking about bringing them. Really? Somebody from Microsoft is going to bring a team, they're saying. What was it, Paul Allen? I don't think so. He just passed away though, right? Maybe it was Paul Allen. I mean, he owned the Sonics, I think. But he was from Microsoft? I'm just getting all confused now. No, I think you're right. Yeah, Paul Allen was Bill Gates' partner. He died? Yeah, I think he died kind of in the last like six months. Well, maybe Seattle's

not getting a basketball team. I'm not sure. Okay. Where did they go? Oh, Oklahoma City, right? Yeah. Oh, it's so confusing, everyone, for two half sports guys like us. We don't even make a full sports guy. Who's your team this season? Well, I always root for the Hawks, but it's just they're a wasteland. It's pretty bad. So I don't even care. Yeah. Who did Schroeder play for now? He plays for Oklahoma City. Does he? I thought it was a different Western team. You like Lebron in LA? Sure. We should have a sports show called The Worst Sports Show on the web. This is a trailer for it. What about the Eden project? That one's pretty cool. And aren't there two of these in there one in China as well? I think they're going

to open one in China. I think there's a third one they're opening, but the one that the original one's in Cornwall, or I'm sorry, Canal. Cornhole? In the UK. God knows how you pronounce that. I guarantee it's not Cornwall. It's probably Cornwall. Maybe. This one's really cool though. This is one where you look it up and you're like, this is what you should be doing in geodesic dome like experimentation. They build a biome. Yeah. That's one of the points of a geodesic dome is you can create a different climate inside a larger climate. It's a bubble. You're creating a climate bubble. Yeah. That's what the Eden project did at least. And they have two of them. They've got a tropical biome and then a smaller Mediterranean

biome. So cool. And they're just beautiful. Lots of amazing plants and waterfalls and just great stuff. Apparently it's a wonderful tourist attraction. I would go next time. I totally would. I think there's also a witchcraft museum in Cornwall that I want to go to. Let's do it, man. All right. We're going road trip. Yeah. We got to do a UK tour again. Yeah. That was awesome. And then we'll detour off to Cornwall. Maybe do a show there. How many people are there? Cornwall. Let us know if we should do a show there. Let's do a live show inside the tropical biome. That'd be cool. I wonder if we could set that up. We could also do an EPCOT too. We'll do a geodesic dome tour. Can we do one inside of the castle

in the magic cave? We can ask. You have connections there, right? Yeah. From Brandon. That's right. You built my site, thejoshclarkeway.com. I know. I'm going to have to get in touch with him as my kid gets older. I have to finally drag Emily down there. He will happily help you out. He's a great guy. He helped my brother out. Oh, and by the way, I'm glad you brought that up. Congratulations to Brandon and Katie on the birth of their first ever child. Oh, wow. Yes, Cooper. Born into Disney royalty. Yeah, pretty much. That's pretty great. Congrats, dudes. I wonder if Cooper's going to go up and just be like, yeah, take care of it. I go like twice a week. Right. This isn't Euro Disney. I wish it was Euro Disney. Well, that

is Spaceship Earth, of course, is the one we're talking about there that we mentioned. 180 feet tall, silver geosphere, very much the central sort of shining star of EPCOT. That's what everybody thinks of with EPCOT. Yep. It's on every shirt. Well, not every shirt, but 98%. 98%. Did you know that EPCOT is an acronym, Chuck? I did, but I remembered that from when I was a kid, but I can't remember now. What is it? Experimental prototype community of tomorrow. That's right. And the name of the geodesic dome is actually called Spaceship Earth, and it was directly influenced by Bucky Fuller while Disney was a big futurist. That's why there's like Tomorrowland and all that stuff and why there's EPCOT in general. But

not only did he inspire Spaceship Earth, the name Spaceship Earth comes from a Bucky Fuller essay, kind of a novella called An Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. You can find the PDF for free on the web and get a pretty good idea of Bucky Fuller's whole jam. You know what I heard? I heard that very famous Walt Disney signature is not his signature. I believe that. And that like a cartoonist designer came up with that for him. It's just too perfect. I can totally see that. Yeah. I'm not affected by that. I'm okay with it. Oh really? He's not just a big fraud now in your mind? Basically. I let him off the hook. If you want to know more about geodesic domes, go make friends with a hippie. And since I said that, it's

time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call one of our new young fans. Got a very sweet email from Veronica. Hey guys, I'm Veronica, 15 years old, and I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana. I just heard about Sarah, the 13-year-old superfan. Who's like 15 now? Yeah, Sarah's. She's Ms. Karn. And I too am a superfan. I started listening when I was 9 or 10 with my mom every once in a while. Then I got an iPod and started listening to you regularly when I was 11. I love listening to the show when I'm getting ready in the morning and I'm going to school or going to sleep before bed. Every time you guys do a tour announcement, I always hope you're going to say somewhere close, like within two hours of Indianapolis.

But I don't think that has ever happened. Dude, Cleveland is not that far from Indian apolis. I took a break from podcasts for about two months, but I miss listening to them. So I came back and now I'm back regularly again. I just want to stop and say hi. If I'm lucky, I'll make it to the podcast, but I don't expect it. Just keep being you guys because I love to learn about the four different types of cat hair. The fact that cinnamon is a type of tree bark. Perfume is made from whale vomit and urosol is what makes poison ivy so itchy. Wow. My mom really likes your beard, Chuck, and she hopes that someone gives you some beard lights for Christmas. Oh, I saw those. If you don't know what they are,

they're just little ornaments that you hang in your beard. Have you seen them? And they light up super festive. Do you want some? No. Okay. I cut most of my beard off. I just noticed that. It looks very trim. This is sort of like the old days. Looks nice. And that is, she put signed Veronica, which is adorable. Thank you, Veronica. So Veronica, I think we should, we're trying to hit the major cities we've never been to eventually. Right. I think we might want to put Indianapolis on the list for 2019. Oh boy. And give Indiana some love. Okay. Fine. This year we were like, I don't know, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and they were great. It's true. Well, to be honest, Salt Lake City came out for us. They emailed

us. They're like, yes, please come. We got such an overwhelming response that we're like, how could we say no? So we should go to Indianapolis. I told her if we do, then we'll put her and mom on the guest list. That is very nice. Okay. They have a dome there. They just settled. We could go do a show there where the Colts play. We could. Is it the Colts? What do they play soccer? Yeah, but they came from Baltimore. They then became the Ravens. It's just so weird. Everyone's moving all over the place. Who's the great leader of the Pacers now? Victor. The great leader? Yeah. Who is the great leader? Kim Jong Victor. I don't know. They're coach? No, no. He's like the captain. But yeah, he's a player.

I don't know. Ron Artest. Victor. What year is this? Right now. Victor Borgia? Yes, Victor Borgia is now. Anyway, we're going to list him too once I remember his last name because he's an amazing player. Victor Victoria. If you want to know, well, I already said that, if you want to get in touch with us, you can go to stuffyshadow.com and you will find all of our social links there. I don't know if I said it or not already, but I got a website too. It's called thejoshclarkeway.com and you can always send us an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and

dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted

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