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| Science & Technology | ||
| These Florida domed homes have survived category 5 hurricanes | ||
| 2024-10-18 | ||
| [BBC] As Florida has been hit by several devastating hurricanes, homes designed to withstand these extreme storms have gone through a serious test. In 2018, Hurricane Michael made history, becoming the first category five hurricane on record to make landfall in the Florida Panhandle. It caused widespread destruction and damage, sweeping entire buildings off their foundations, and impacting almost 50,000 structures. But in a small gulf-front community in Mexico Beach, Florida, something unexpected could be seen amidst the chaos. One home, an unusual caterpillar-like dome-shaped structure, remained standing, barely touched by the 160mph (260km/h) windspeeds. The home, called "Golden Eye", belonged to Margaret Clayton, who had designed and built the house in 2015 with a construction company called Monolithic Domes. Clayton's neighbour's house "exploded", sending a transformer flying into her house and smashing into the wall. "All the homes around me were destroyed or uninhabitable," she says. Golden Eye, meanwhile, remained intact. "The wow factor comes when you see those photos," says Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos, an assistant professor in the University of Miami's civil, architectural and environmental engineering department. "Total destruction next to a dome house that's still standing. It's quite impressive." In the US, hurricanes cause more death and destruction than any other extreme weather event. Since 1980, there have been 363 billion-dollar weather disasters in the US, and hurricanes have caused the most damage – more than $1.3 trillion (£993bn) in total, with an average cost of $22.8 billion (£17.4bn) per event. As of 2023, they had caused 6,890 deaths. With hurricanes rapidly becoming more intense due to climate change
"This type of [climate-resilient] architecture combined with the right engineering solutions could save lives in the face of extreme weather," says Rhode-Barbarigos. "We need to explore building more climate-resistant structures because we know that certain forms are better for certain environments."
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| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #9 I shit you not: In order to increase their bid for a Stuper Bowl Hosting, Kansas City proposed building what is basically a giant, lack of a better term, half cylinder aircraft hanger, mounted on rails, which could traverse back and forth between the baseball and football stadiums, so it would have to be open ended. My peers were all excited even with the tax increase, natch, until I pointed out: Nevermind the weird wind currents it makes and sounds like, nevermind that thing getting covered in two inches of ice, what happens when a tornado comes through? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2024-10-18 19:55 |
| #8 I imagine you could use peristalsis to move from one end to the other? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2024-10-18 18:21 |
| #7 After a big cyclone, cyclone Tracy, just about wiped out Darwin there was a lot of thought in Australia put into cyclone proofing houses. One promising design was an all steel bungalow style house with four hinged, drop down verandas. The big wind is coming, you lower the verandas down to the ground and fix them to bolts in the concrete floors. There is a gap at each corner when they are up, filled in with a removable insert. When lowered and fixed down, there are no gaps or projections for the wind to enter, and with the structural strength of the house itself combined with the bolted down perimeter, it has a tremendous grip on the ground. I haven’t seen the design used at all since, probably costs too much. |
| Posted by: Ululating Platypus 2024-10-18 18:15 |
| #6 Perhaps the two end bulbs need an extendable parascope from the dome peak? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2024-10-18 18:04 |
| #5 I can't imagine living in a house with no windows. Worse, I can't imagine living next door to a house that looks like a giant ass. |
| Posted by: Regular+joe 2024-10-18 15:07 |
| #4 These homes would like at home on Tatooine. As the other guy said, Jawa Homes. |
| Posted by: mossomo 2024-10-18 13:09 |
| #3 The first house looks like a tribe of Jawas might pull into the driveway with some droid offerings. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2024-10-18 12:29 |
| #2 Click on the headline to go to the article, Anon1. There are illustrative photos there. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2024-10-18 10:05 |
| #1 Interesting can we see the pic? It is not climate change which is not even caused by carbon but by electromagnetic cycles and orbit wobbles |
| Posted by: Anon1 2024-10-18 09:27 |