Archimede Construction Systems
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Archimede construction systems are
construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...
techniques achieving rhombic dodecahedral shapes, a space-filling geometry. In America, most of these systems generate
building envelope A building envelope or building enclosure is the physical separator between the conditioned and unconditioned environment of a building, including the resistance to air, water, heat, light, and noiseSyed, Asif. ''Advanced building technologies for ...
s made up of as little as two panel shapes and sizes, this feature allowing for maximum
industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...
. These panels are generally pressure injected with a rigid structural insulating foam like
polyurethane Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) is a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethane term ...
. In
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
and
Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
, post and beam structure often create a dodecahedral shape that is later filled with different cladding materials. Although the basic
geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...
sometimes contains an entire house, most applications of the system are an agglomeration of cells each forming a rhombic dodecahedral living space that can be a room or a larger living area when combined with adjacent dodecahedral modules.


History

The peculiar three-dimensional structure of the
honey bee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the ...
comb has intrigued for thousands of years. It is quite possible that some isolated construction project used a scaled-up version of this
zonohedron In geometry, a zonohedron is a convex polyhedron that is point symmetry, centrally symmetric, every face of which is a polygon that is centrally symmetric (a zonogon). Any zonohedron may equivalently be described as the Minkowski addition, Minkows ...
, however a largely visible use of these shapes only appeared in the early 1980s. Les Systèmes Archimede Inc. of Tring Junction QC started to produce applying US4462191, a patent owned by J. Poirier who also co-founded the manufacturing firm with Placide Poulin .Prefabricated dwelling of the modular type
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References


External links


High-Tech Housing, Popular Science Magazine

Why Rhombic Dodecahedral shells are so strong, text and illustrations by J.B. Poirier,arch.

Arctic Refuges on Stilts, Forbes Magazine

Housing Industry Takes Some Tips From The Bees, The Montreal Gazette

Prefabs Doing Well, The Montreal Gazette
Architecture Prefabricated buildings {{architecture-stub