Urban Honking

Tuesday, May 15

6:00pm Flextegrity Lecture @ Curiosity Club

May. 15th
Sam Lanahan: Flextegrity “Innovations in Structural Optimization. Making things stronger and lighter- why geometry matters!”

I had the great good fortune as a young man to travel with Buckminster Fuller on a trip to Southeast Asia where he was the guest of many heads of State. His influence on me is immeasurable. Afterwards I spent two years exploring the geometry of geodesics and tensegrities with Joe Clinton at Union College. I earned a MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon, after which I founded a company with others that pioneered Geographic Information Systems applications for mobile data collection in the electric, cable, and telephone industries. Naturally, this work dovetailed nicely with my interest in spatial topologies. In 2004 I reinvigorated ‘Flextegrity’ by continuing my earlier explorations into the development of a ‘universal material.’ I now hold two patents and a third pending in structural optimized materials based on icosahedral arrays.
Making load bearing materials- A new look at discontinuous compression continuous tension structures. The discussion will explore the structural and symmetrical integrity of the icosahedron and what it means to constrain the twelve degrees of freedom. From there we will weave omni-axial, omni-extensible arrays into virtually any form. We will explore the unique characteristics of the resulting arrays and potential applications.