Thursday, July 16, 2009

Structural Ideas

First attempt to realise the entire structure as a geodesic‐dome, built with triangular shapes.














The triangular shapes for the geodesic‐dome could be made of panels of plastic; in the centre of every panel there is a hemisphere of the same material. If you put two panels together you get a sphere. The edges of the triangle are the connecting elements.




























The construction of the geodesic‐dome is self‐supporting because of the specific arrangement of the triangles. Due to the dimensions of the mosque and of the spheres, we get five different sizes of triangles, and, of course, also five different sizes of spheres. Although the spheres touch each other, there are resulting bigger „holes“ in the centre as expected. The yellow marked sphere shows the idea to fill these „holes“ with another sphere.




























The orthogonal walls oft he mosque could be realised with the same construction method as the geodesic‐dome. Dividing the walls in triangles, all the spheres have the same size, the resultant pattern is very similar tot he pattern oft he geodesic‐dome.




























Another possibility for the construction of the walls is to take squares instead of triangular shapes. The pattern you get of squares is more regular, this way more balls fit in the structure than in the construction idea above.




























The two systems have also different numbers of balls or spheres:
- the dome is composed of 360 triangles and that means 360 spheres.
- the walls with the triangular structure are made of 114 elements, the four sides are thus composed of 456 spheres.
- with the square elements we get 136 spheres, equaling 544 spheres on all four sides!

Some images that show how the entire mosque could look like…..

Triangular‐shaped elements for the walls














Rendering














Square‐shaped elements for the walls














Rendering

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