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ou8nrtist2 — Cubic Sphere Gazebo
Published: 2009-05-01 03:12:15 +0000 UTC; Views: 2194; Favourites: 35; Downloads: 53
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Description
Since I've had no commissions lately,I kicked this out in the last three days tapping my stockpiled materials. All recycled steel.Height to top is 12.5 feet.
Diameter of rings 9 ft. 3 inches.
The rings are 3x3 angle and were rolled "mistakes " from the rolling mill. I bought a truckload a couple of years ago and am slowly making my way through the stack.
Only 12 bolts hold the whole structure together. It is quite stout. One can easily climb all over it with no loss of structural integrity.
Notice the pre-drilled holes in the top ring. That is for mounting add-on trellises for planting vines at each of the "corners".Not sure yet what the trellises will look like ...
The little ball finial on the top is just like:
[link]
except it's made of steel instead of stainless steel.
This is a rather large PENDENTIVE GAZEBO.
The pendentive, you may remember, was a device used by Roman builders to support domes in masonry construction, but the Byzantine architects were the ones who truly perfected it. One of the finest examples being the classic Ottoman Mosque of Hagia Sofia in Istanbul.
The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to points at the bottom and spread at the top to establish the continuous circular or elliptical base needed for the dome. In masonry the pendentives thus receive the weight of the dome, concentrating it at the four corners where it can be received by the piers beneath.
Thanks to ~Dragonsmithy for reminding me...
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Comments: 61
Me too,
I'm surprised i haven't sold that thing yet...LOL
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A Gazebo need not be a boring architectural device...
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of course! I love gazebos. What I like about this one the most is the curves. It is like a steampunk alice in wonderland gazebo in my head. Does that make any sense? Anyway, I think its perfect and envision beautiful wild things growing all over it
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If you look at the folder in my gallery titled GARDEN STRUCTURES you'll see several more with curves.
One in particular in the center of my garden has those wild things growing all over it now...
[link]
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do you know what would look really good? Wisteria vines. I think I would grow grapes on them 
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I grow grapes here but the wisteria is just a bit difficult because I actually get frost sometimes at my house in the Winter.That's why I have to keep my citrus in the greenhouse all winter too...
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I don't know much about wisteria myself I do know some people grow it on the pacific coast. Given a choice grapes would be my selection also. Not only for beauty but they produce wonderful fruit as well. Plus, the larger leaves go well with your piece
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Wisteria grows all over the place out here in locations without frost.
There's a lot of it down in Marin County which is on about 20 miles away but I have frost a t my house so grapes,honeysuckle,ivy, and clematis are better choices for climbing vines.
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ooohhh clematis are soo wonderful, I have planted one this year and just bought three more ready to plant. Next year I hope to do honeysuckle because they are just freaking beautiful. Got a climbing rose finally though so I am running out of places to plant these beauties
Do you find you get a lot of grapes growing? Are they pretty easy to care for? I am up in Canada and there is LOTS of frost here, any grapes you prefer?
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On that steel igloo gazebo I've planted four different colored grapes ,and we often have dinner beneath the overhanging fruit in the fall. but I basically let the birds have most of it since it's pretty much wine grapes in this area. They are certainly easy to care for here,and with selective clipping (in January)you can clone root stock or shape the growth how you want it...
On the side of the house that facessouth we have what can only be described as a grape TREE since it's climbed over two stories now and spread all over the roof. It likes the heat i'm told...
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birds do enjoy the fruit, they are all over my cherry tree even though the fruits are not even close to ripe yet. The grape tree sounds amazing!
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haha just realized you did plant grapes! I agree, good choice
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I love all these pieces you've posted recently, this one in particular. The thick bold lines of the angle give it a powerful look I really like. I can't wait to see what you'll be going with for a design on the next pieces.
I've started gathering some small scraps myself for projects. Still no luck finding such great larger pieces like you've been able to scrounge up, but I haven't had a lot of time to search. We'll see where time leads me.
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Thank you,
It helps of course to research the industrial places in your area that produce the kind of scrap you can use.
Then go about trying to make acquaintance with whoever within that company deals with the scrap,and ingratiate yourself somehow...There are many ways to do this.
One technique I've found effective is to make a nice print of whatever I make from the scrap and present it to the front office. This tends to include the supplier,albeit vicarious;y,in the process of making art. It also makes them put you in another category ,instead of just some guy who wants to buy scrap...
On another note.
I was just published in a book on metal sculpture called "From Fire to Form"by an author in your backyard.
Mathew S.Clarke (from New Hampshire)
[link]
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This is awesome! I love the shape, it's so different, and pleasing to the eye... it took me awhile to think of what the shape reminded me of... but then I thought of it... an old fashioned diver's helmet, hehe.
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Good eye Alice,
It IS the same shape...
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Heehehheh,
Yes ,and four acres is almost big enough...
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Thank you Katie,LOL
It's for sale for only $2700.oo (usually $3500.oo).
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Excellent.
So do you intend to plant the vines in the corners? I'd love to see that after they've enveloped the structure. You have a nice backyard too!
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Yes,
I have another one (same size) I made years ago and planted with four different colored table grapes at the corners. I'll be posting that sometime soon...
Stay tuned.
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Love the gazebo. Are the other things in the background things you have made too? like geodesic dome and the other circle and tower thing?
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Yep.
I have four very flat acres that exist as my sculpture garden and gallery. There are currently over 50 pieces outside on the grounds,all for sale...
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Oh that is very cool. Looks like a park. I have 10 acres but its not a park it is desert. One of these days I may put some sculptures out there. Not metal probably though. I've been wanting to do some concrete sculptures with some papercrete or ferrocement. I want to make gargoyles to put on either side of my driveway.
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Yes I think so. We have several ideas for various types of concrete sculptures mostly based in fantasy. When we will ever get them done is anyones guess. We have talked about putting red glass eyes in the gargoyles and a solar light in the head to illuminate the eyes at night. Also perhaps to give a red glow in the back of the mouth.
We also have a large Dragon fireplace on the list. This would have large wings spread out with benches for seating. The wings would be the backs of the benches and provide a wind break. The wings would be spread in a sort of semicircular shape around the body of the dragon. The belly of the dragon would have the fireplace and the neck and head of the dragon would be the chimney. So when you had fire in the fireplace you would get smoke out of his nose and mouth. Also nice glass in the eyes to collect the sunn and perhaps to glow from the fire as well. We have a place out back where we want to put it. Think it would be a great party place.
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Those are great ideas.
My partner Pat Miller from [link] could do the casting with high efficiency concrete but you guys would have to make the molds. They would have to be quite stout and seal tightly by bolting together on the outside...Probably fiberglass would be the best material to use.
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That is nice stuff but a bit overkill for this. The things we want to build can be fairly easily constructed using ferrocement techniques without paying someone else a ton of money to do it. Here is a wild website that you can check out to see some ideas, tons actually, by this one guy BO he has tons of photos and some very cool ideas as well as some a little out there. [link]
Here is a lovely example of a fountain that is created using ferrocement. It has a welded wire armature. You should be able to really get a hold of the unplastered form 
And if you find that this intrigues you visit [link] and have a look in the photo gallery and the forum where you can discuss these things with lots of people that have done it, teach it, and play with it, and some that are just beginning to think about it as well.
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The last time I went back to Maine (2007)(my childhood home),I made a special effort(which turned out to be an adventure) to search out Bo Atkinson,since he lives near my brother. I photographed his ferro cement"mushroom house"and got the complete tour by he and his wife.
I have a long term project with bohemianstoneworks to produce a ferro cement organic style bathtub of my own design,but I am also interested in it's other applications,having witnessed it's early use as a child in sailboat manufacturing(the hull).
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Yes ferrocement is pretty cool stuff. That is so funny that you would know Bo. I would love to see some of his stuff in person it is so cool. The guy has got some really out there ideas but most of them are soo cool, and the really cool thing is he has done so much of it. I've got plenty of ideas but haven't had the time to put them in play. Bo is a Member on the ferrocement.net forum. There are lots of people that are really good with it on there. Its a fun place. Lots of good ideas get banged around there.
I'm the webmaster so anything that is screwy is probably my fault. That is the best volunteer gig I've ever landed. I told Paul, he's the guy that owns the FEN and ferrocement.net that I could help him out years ago. The website at that point was pretty much a disaster and he didn't know anything about it. Someone else had built it for him then quit answering emails etc. So I told him I could do it for him. Then he started sending me money every so often. Never had anyone do that before, send me money when I hadn't asked for any. So over the last few years its been through a few iterations. Now we have a forum on it that seems to be working pretty well.
So anyway one of these years we'll build some gargoyles and a dragon fire place using a combo of papercrete and ferrocement. You could always come out and play sometime. I'm sure your welding skills would come in handy.
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All sounds good,
Bo is quite eccentric,but his wife keeps him on track,sort of.
She has a flower business run from their property which keeps things going I guess.
They live several miles down a dirt road off a remote backroad. It's basically wilderness,so they do what they want. Their place would make a wonderful movie set,completely overgrown and Bo's ferro-cement "experiments"everywhere... I took lots of decent pics of the mushroom house,the interior stairway,supporting columns(one of which is cracked and coming apart),and the coffered ceiling which I must say interested me most of all,since it's made with inflated innertubes as the form...
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Yes the inflated innertube form thing was quite interesting. Took me awhile to figure it out from the photos on the website but I think I have it figured out now. Like I said cool stuff, a few of his things are a bit too out there for me but most of it is really great stuff. I love the sand cast stuff too would like to do some of that sort of thing as well. Just too many ideas and not enough time. The inside of my brain looks a bit like his website. Sort of all over the place. Lots and lots of ideas all banging around in there with a few of them sort of floating more to the surface than others.
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Yes,
He's very diffuse,but with allot of practical knowledge.
I couldn't figure out the inner tube thing either until I saw it. That was one of the major reasons I went there. Corbeling to make domed roofs has always interested me,no matter what the material.I went inside a very big ancient one at Mycenae in Greece when I was a child and will never forget it.
It looked to me (after witnessing the failure in one of the columns in the Mushroom House),that there was a weakness in his formula. He likes to do everything himself and is a bit isolated.
The reason I brought up my erstwhile partner Patrick Miller from Bohemian Stoneworks is that he did a tremendous amount of research on formula and constituents to produce a truly high performance concrete for counter tops etc.
But you are right in that you probably wouldn't need that level of performance in yard sculptures or even the fire pit in Arizona...
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Yes countertops are a whole different thing. They need to be durable and not stain easily and be smooth and pretty and fit in a designated area with tight dimensions. I've toyed with the idea of concrete countertops and even have a book on how to do them but so far I still have the laminate. They put all sorts of additives in that concrete so it will behave well in that sort of situation. Plus the finishing is key too. I have a pretty good understanding of concrete. My dad was a concrete engineer. He worked on dams and repaired dams and tested concrete. So I heard about concrete all the time growing up.
For the fire pit we will probably line it with fire brick and then put the FC around the outside of that so it will be better insulated and safer and last longer. Plus that will help with the form for the cement too.
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Patrick Millers father was a concrete engineer as well.
And the local master of concrete countertops in the greater Bay area is undoubtedly Fu Tung Cheng.
We both attended a lecture by him about 10 years ago.
Then Patrick did a year of research and our collaborations began.
He now takes meticulous measurements for countertops at the clients house,makes a jig,goes back to his shop,makes the forms and pours the mix,then spends allot of time finishing the surface after curing and sealing it as well. He does no on-site pouring (unlike Cheng)because he can control all the parameters better in his shop. He is a bit of a perfectionist,but I believe that's what it takes to make a successful business with this material...
Sounds like you have a good understanding of it's possible applications...
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Thanks I hope I absorbed enough. I also talk to people and read when I need to fill in spots. I'm not sure but I think the book I have is by Cheng. The countertops would be a fun thing to try for an outside project or maybe for the bathroom vanity and then if it came out good think about doing the complex kitchen counters. The finishing is quite a process but well polished concrete can be very lovely. There is no doubt that someone that dedicates themselves to perfecting a system is likely to make some very good product. The table on his website is really beautiful. I just hope to be able to create things that are functional for my own use with concrete. Something fun to do and come up with some unusual and not prohibitively expensive functional art and architecture.
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Do you mean the table that looks like it has a compass rose motif inlaid in the surface?
That's his dining table. It was one of our first collaborations. We call it the "surfboard table". I did the inlay stainless borders between colors and the base ,which unfortunately can't be seen in those photos.There are four 8 inch diameter steel cylinders as the legs, mounted right where the points of the pattern is,so it gives the maximum structural stability to that tabletop which is easily 350 lbs...
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Yes that is the one. It is a beautiful table. Sounds like he doesn't re-arrange his dining room often. That is one of the disadvantages of solid concrete furniture. Its bloody heavy.
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True,
and that weight feature must be considered when considering placing pieces in a home.
and you're right ,he doesn't rearrange often...LOL.
I had dinner with a group at that table last month and,disregarding the aesthetics totally, I have to say, it is one of the best and most efficient designs for the dining experience that I've ever witnessed.
Come to think of it,I can't believe I don't have this piece featured in my gallery here on DA.LOL.
Anyway,there is also something so comfortable about the surface of polished concrete,for counter tops ,but also for other applications,(like this dining table). It just begs to be touched. It definitely has a very different resonant signature than wood. I guess it harkens back to the psychological stability of earth and solid ground.
I think that would make a most interesting future investigative essay;"The attendant psychological signatures of various organic materials for human interaction and object design".would metal be considered "organic"?
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Very good question. I suppose it would have to be considered somewhat organic. Most metals have occurred in some places in pure form. The ancient indians of the southeast used found copper nuggets and pounded them into decorative objects. Organic is usually just something that is found naturally. Unless you go for the chemical definition then I'm not sure as I'm not a chemist and have never taken chemistry. On the other hand most metals in use today are highly refined and alloyed which makes them not really like anything that you would find naturally.
As for a resonant signature concrete dwill ring metal against it will always make a clear clean sound, whereas against wood it will tend to thud. Wood absorbs the sound, concrete reflects it. Wood has a warmth that many people prefer, concrete is cool and unyielding.
I think that various materials resonate to different people in different ways due to perhaps astrological or perhaps numeric orientations. The oriental as well as western astrological signs are related back to materials or elements. Oriental thought includes wood and metal western more commonly refers only to air, fire, water, earth, although some astrologers will include a stone as of special meaning. These beliefs are ancient and I feel like there must be some basis in observed fact of some sort rather than just by chance or someone's wild ass guess. So I do believe that there is a basis for a psycological interaction.
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Hobbit Gazebo
i wants it precious
*geekery*
it's beautiful
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Nice; awaiting trellis stuff.
The area around it reminds me of the space in west Berkeley where huge metal sculptures used to be stored. There was a box on the gate with a labeled map, so it acted as a gallery.
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No. It was indeed in the same general area as the first two locations of Urban Ore, and just north of Frog Computer Rentals; but as far as I know, there was no connection. A huge field, with lots of weeds and enormous abstract metal sculptures by different artists.
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Sounds cool,
I remember in the nineties,the mudflats down by the racetrack with all those cool driftwood structures that could be seen from the freeway...
Man,I can't believe I haven't been down there since I quit teaching in 1993.
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These days the driftwood sculptures are out on the Albany bulb. If you google "albany bulb" there are articles, and an image search on the same quoted phrase will get some pictures. If you do a deviantART search on it, you will find lots of photos, too, including my deviantID photo where I'm sitting on part of a driftwood archway, and the comment has a link to my picture of the whole arch. That arch is gone now, like the one before it, but several of the large figures were still there last time I went walking out there, and lots of small stuff comes and goes.
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Cool don,
Thanks for the update...
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