Panels

The concrete & foam panels are going up!


Todd lifts the triangular panel with the crane, while Mike & Bob guide it into place.


Once the panel is snug in place, the mesh edges are clipped together and the beveled edges will eventually be filled in with concrete.

My sister, visiting from California, saw the dome for the first time today and pronounced it "supremely cool".

Framed

The frame is complete. No, this isn't a duplicate of Friday's picture. Note the 4' risers all around the bottom, which give the dome its final height of 28' at the center.


Framing was a sometimes arduous process, and the frame would often threaten to wobble itself to bits up until the bottom bracing was put in place. Then, the whole thing became steady as a rock. This is the nature of the dome shape -- it exerts pressure evenly downward and out, so it will pretty much never collapse as long as the foundation ring is uncompromised. Concrete domes have been known to stand for centuries completely unaffected by the passage of time.

Behold the Dome

Today around noon, I came around the corner by the farmhouse and saw the frame arching into the blue blue sky. It took my breath away. The curve of the dome is so lovely and organic, nothing like an ordinary house.

First Floor

Today we finished laying the ground floor and started building the support frame prior to erecting the dome panels.


The last little bit of floor going in. That's Todd's son manning the adhesive gun.


The start of the frame. It will support the dome panels until they are cemented in place, at which point the dome shell will be completely self-supporting; then, the frame will be disassembled and recycled in the interior framing.

A note regarding that turkey

The turkey that met its early demise at the hands of Steve's van's grille has, sadly, not fulfilled its destiny of becoming dinner. It has been quite hot lately, so Steve picked up a cheap-o styrofoam cooler on the way back from the errand (one of the reasons it took so long), and threw Mr. Tom in there along with some ice, so he would make it home in edible condition. But, later in the day, the cooler suffered a destructive impact from a toolbox that was dropped during a somewhat careless offloading moment. The cooler would no longer hold ice at that point. Not wanting a smelly turkey carcass in the van, Steve transferred the whole shebang to Todd's truck, thinking the boss would deal with it. Inexplicably, however, Steve failed to tell Todd that he had done such a thing.

Next morning, Todd had one of these kind of moments when he opened up his truck: "Holy crap, what's that smell? Hey, what's this cooler doing in here?"

So Steve didn't get a turkey dinner after all, and Todd has to ride around with no air conditioning and the windows down in the 95° heat for a few days.