Test your Design IQ
Who is the renowned American architect, author, designer, futurist, inventor and visionary best known for his geodesic domes, which can be seen as part of military radar stations, civic buildings, and exhibition attractions like the Spaceship Earth at Disney World’s Epcot Center in Florida?
He was born on July 2, 1895 in Milton, Massachusetts, and spent his youth in Bear Island off the coast of Maine, where he developed a natural propensity for design and construction.
Although he had little formal training, his talent and mechanical skills led him to teach at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina in the summers of 1948 and 1949, and serving as its summer institute director in 1949. There with the support of a group of professors and students, he began work on the project that would make him famous, and revolutionized the field of engineering — the lattice shell structure called the geodesic dome.
Today, more than 500,000 geodesic domes have been built around the world, the largest aluminum dome of which formerly housed the Spruce Goose airplane in Long Beach Harbor, California. An interesting spinoff of his design was the Buckminster Ball, which was the official FIFA-approved design for footballs, which was introduced in the 1970 World Cup. The design was essentially a geodesic sphere consisting of 12 pentagonal and 20 hexagonal panels. This was used continuously for 34 years until it was replaced by a 14-panel version for the 2006 World Cup.
He was one of the first to propagate a systemic worldview, and he explored principles of energy and material efficiency in the fields of architecture, engineering and design. As an early environmental activist, he was very well aware that the earth had limited resources to offer, and promoted a principle he termed “ephemeralization,” which means doing more with less.
He also introduced synergetics, a metaphoric language for communicating ideas susing geometric concepts long before the word synergy became popular. For his work, he was awarded 28 US patents and many doctorates. º
Last week’s question: Who is the Italian-American celebrity chef best known for her Everyday Italian cooking show and cookbooks, giving an exciting twist to her country’s traditional cuisine?
Answer: Giada de Laurentiis
Winner: Ma. Leonora del Pilar of Makati City
* * *
Design quiz has a new number!
Text your answer to 09053142614 with your name and address. One winner will be chosen through a raffle of texts with the correct answer. The winner will receive P2,000 worth of SM gift certificates for use at Our Home, SM Department Store, or SM Supermarket. They can claim their prize at Our Home in SM Megamall. Call the store manager at 634-1950, 634-1943. Bring photocopies of two valid IDs and a clipping of the Design Quiz issue in which you appear as winner.
