Project Overview

Pillow domes were invented by Jay Baldwin. See also the film "Ecological Design: Inventing the Future". He took 2 layers of DuPont's Tefzel film and heat sealed them together. He then took these triangular shaped "air" pillows and attached them to the triangular frame of a geodesic dome. Once these thin film layers were attached to the dome's frame, he injected a gas into the pillows.

These Pillow Domes have a tremendous potential for providing durable, transparent environmental enclosing structures while using a minimum amount of material. They would be ideal for enclosing, for example, water purification systems like those being developed by Dr. John Todd. (See the material at Living Technologies web pages.)

I am currently working with students at the State University of New York (SUNY), Oswego campus to construct a 25 foot diameter pillow dome. Together with Prof. John Belt, I hope to construct this dome with the students early next year. Jay Baldwin will be assisting us as our technical consultant.

Some of the advantages of a pillow dome over conventional dome construction are

• Flexable covering. Uneven heating over the outside surface of the dome will cause uneven expansion and contraction. Because the thin films have the ability to stretch this is not a problem for the pillow domes.
• Water tight. Jay's method for attaching the thin film insures that the dome will not leak. Leakage has been a problem in the past for convensional domes, mostly due to the joints becoming loose with the uneven expansion and contraction mentioned above.
• Minimum shadow. The Biosphere 2 project had a problem because there wasn't enough sunlight passing through the dome surface/frame to grow the food they wanted to. With the pillow dome, we are approaching the maximum amount of sun light passing through the dome to the space enclosed.
• Maintanance. Pillow domes require extreemely low maintenance.
• Better than single layer films. Domes (or other structures) covered with a single layer of film tend to "flap in the wind". This weakens the film which shortens its lifetime. There is no flap with Pillow domes.
• Better sound quality. Because the interior surface of Pillow domes are convex triangular bubbles, sounds inside the dome are dispersed rather than focused as would be the case with a flat or convex wall surface.

There are "problems" with pillow domes which need further investigation. These include

• Repair. To repair a punctured pillow is not easy. Its not complex, but its not easy.
• Its not a do-it-yourself type of project. The pillows are made by heat sealing at least two layers of film together. The average do-it-yourselfer doesn't have easy access to an impulse heat sealer. But once you *have* the pillows heat sealed, the rest is straight forward.
• The size of the triangular pillows are unique for each size and frequency dome. It would be nice to be able to use "old" pillows in a new, different sized dome, but the triangular framing of domes are different for each change in radius and frequency. This might be overcome by some ingenious re-designning of dome framing.

List of Project Components...

Here is a Table of Contents style list for the Pillow Dome Project components which I am exploring.

• List of Pillow Dome Design Requirements and Considerations
• Thin Films
• Gas Valves
• Heatsealing Process
• Dome Framing/Structure Design
• Cost

NOTE: Jay reminds us that a key element in any dome project is the foundation upon which the dome will be attached. With the air flow over the surface of the dome you can get a large *lifting* force on the dome. If it is not securely fastened to the ground it *will* blow away.

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