Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Dome installed in Miami Design District

He had   produced three of the prototype shelters by hand in different sizes before his death in 1983. One of the three domes,   measuring just over seven metres in diameter, was acquired by Miami Design District creator Craig Robins in 2011. A year later, the   Buckminster Fuller Institute commissioned a team of 3D-design specialists to recreate it   using materials and technology not available to the architect during his lifetime. The new   Fly’s Eye Dome   was put in place to coincide with this year’s Design Miami event, which opens today and continues until 7 December. DRDesign, Conform Labs and Goetz Composites created a 3D parametric model from the original parts, then used a five-axis CNC machine to produce a series of engineered components. The architect believed   the building could house solar panels and water collection systems in some of its openings, offering an entirely self-sufficient residence. In 2011, the area hosted an exhibition titled Architecting the Future: Buckminster Fuller Lord Norman Foster that compared the environmentally-driven work of Fuller and the British architect. Richard Buckminster Fuller designed and patented the Fly’s Eye Dome in 1965, which he saw as a prototype for low-cost portable housing of the   future. Each comprises a series of transparent domed windows across a fibreglass partial sphere, creating a geodesic bubble. The largest of Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Domes, measuring 15 metre wide, went on show last year as part of the Toulouse International Art Festival, while the smallest is now owned by Norman Foster. Sitting atop a pool of water, the   new   dome is installed in front of Sou Fujimoto’s almost-complete   Palm Court shopping centre at 140 NE 39th Street.