Weatherbreak Digital Dome

Frame. Node sphere 13.70 m (44.94 ft) across, fitted to the Smithsonian's 16 recorded strut lengths: a radius of 269.66 in. Judge's sheet 3 reads "DOME IS 270" TRIANGULAR GRID" and his engineer W. C. Taylor used r = 22.5 ft — the same dome to 0.13%, which reads "8C270" as 8-frequency, 270-inch radius. Each joint is a 1/2-13 eye bolt through the stacked stainless tongues; each sprit is a 24 in tube with tapped plugs, seated on the stack (sheets 3 and 4, BJD-DR-2021–2025, 2069).

Skin frame. Curved 2×4 Douglas fir ribs on a 265 in radius, five plates at the five-way corners and three at the three-way corners, from Judge's signed calculation "Wood Framing System for Skin" (BJD-DOC-2345). Its "hexagon of 14.72 ft sides" with corners A and B is the rhombic triacontahedron that the strut grid is built on, so the ribs run 5 in inside the strut lines.

Skin. .005 in Mylar in 15 panels (BJD-DOC-3156); the hemisphere holds exactly 15 rhombus-equivalents of the frame (13 whole, 4 halved at the base). Judge's Fig. 2 (BJD-DR-2258) hangs it inside the struts.

Sun-control canopy. Neoprene-coated nylon (Vulcan Coverlight) held on the sprit extension screws with grommets and neoprene washers, 2 ft off the skin (BJD-DR-2071, BJD-DR-2258). It is drawn as Shulman photographed it (3378-7, -8K, -22): one taut sheet pinned at every screw tip and only softly drawn in at each grommet, cut along the frame triangles so its edge zig-zags. The photographs carry the edge lower on the uphill (west) side than the as-built section suggests, so the cap is drawn with a 44° half-angle tipped 10° toward the hill. Section 13/7 (BJD-DR-2029) reads about 3°.

Tilt. The dome does not stand level: its ring of 32 piers follows the hill, so the base is a great circle tilted about 32½° down to the downhill side. Judge's section 13/7 (BJD-DR-2029) puts the sphere centre at the first-floor deck, and his foundation plan (BJD-DR-2024) draws the pier ring as a 45 × 38 ft ellipse, which is a 45 ft circle seen at that tilt.

House. This is the as-built 1962 state ("Geodesic Dome Shelter – revised", sheets 6–7, S1 and 1/52–1/54).

• First floor at the sphere centre: a 43 ft trapezoid on a 10′-9″ triangular grid, with the entry at the SW and a hexagonal bath core. There is a kitchen counter and appliances along a 60° fixed partition, the sleeping area beyond it, a bookcase along the east edge and a built-in seat.
• Second floor at +8′-1½″: a west trapezoid plus a triangular lobe, with a hexagonal closet core venting through the dome.
• A 13-riser spiral stair, and 42″ rails throughout.
• Under the floors: 2″ steel-pipe pyramids and 1½″ pipe V-frames on concrete piers.

Site. The house is shown as built in 1962; the land around it is today's, so it can be measured. Nothing on the ground beyond the pier ring is from 1962 unless it says so.

• Ground: USGS 3DEP 1 m lidar in three rings: 2 m samples to 80 m from the dome, 6 m to 360 m, 30 m to 1.5 km. Inside the pier ring it is regraded to Judge's design grade (−3.3 ft at the sphere centre, falling 32½° downhill). The sphere centre sits at about 290.2 m (952 ft), fitted to the lidar inside the ring.
• Texture: Esri World Imagery draped on the ground: about 12 cm per pixel near the dome, 50 cm to 360 m and 2 m beyond. The three tiers are tone-matched and feathered into each other at their edges. It is a recent photograph, so newer roofs and pools show on the ground. Today the lot is overgrown and there is no structure on it, so the pier-ring area is toned to bare graded earth for the 1962 state. Light is an afternoon sun from the south-west with cast shadows near the dome.
• Lot and zoning: LA County Assessor parcel 5582-004-032, 777 m² (0.19 acre), a wedge running west from the Durand Drive turnaround. City of LA zoning (GeoHub) puts it in R1-1-HCR: one-family, height district 1, inside the Hillside Construction Regulation district. No HPOZ or supplemental use district covers it. The nearest listed Historic-Cultural Monument is No. 535, Hollywoodland's granite retaining walls and stairs, about 70 m east. Parcel and zoning lines are today's.
• Neighbours: LARIAC 2020 building footprints, extruded to their surveyed roof elevations, with the aerial photograph on their roofs. Walls are toned by the assessor's year built: warm for the 442 that stood by 1962, cool grey for the 189 that came later; 20 are undated. The “1962 set-up” hides the later ones. It is an approximation, because assessor dates record the main structure only. The four houses across Durand Drive (2940, 2950, 2954 and 2960) are modelled rather than extruded. Their footprints and roof heights are LARIAC's; roof form, wall colour, glazing, garage doors, decks and balconies are read from today's street and listing photographs. Storey heights and window layouts are interpretations.
• Trees (today): 1,188 crowns found in the 50 cm imagery out to 200 m. Each takes its colour from the photograph under it and its size from the crown. Height and form (broad, multi-stemmed, conifer, shrub) are estimated, not surveyed. They stand for today's canopy, not 1962's, and they are kept off the lot and its edges.
• From Judge's plot plan (sheet 1, BJD-DR-2096), laid onto today's lot: the plan's long lot lines (N 85°48′ W and N 85°51′ W) match the assessor's, and its drawn pier ring is the 45 × 38 ft ellipse whose short axis points 68.6°, against the model's 68.2°. A path leaves the entry court on the south side and curves round the east of the dome to a timber stair (E/1: 2×8 stringers on piers 10 ft apart). The stair descends along the north line to Durand Drive by the power pole, and the same stair runs down the lower left of Shulman's 3378-8K and -22. Underground utilities run on piers from the pole to the dome (F/1). The carport (8′-8″ × 20′) stands at road level at the toe of the 45° cut at the east end, behind an 8″ block retaining wall. The entry court has block steps and a young tree, as in 3378-3 and -4. The drawings put the road 48.0 ft below the first floor; today it is about 58 ft.
• Orientation: the plan rotation (house axis at N 21°48′ W) is confirmed by the pier-ring ellipse on the plot plan, to within about 1°. Today's assessor line at the west end runs about N 11° E, which differs from the 1958 plat; the long sides agree.
• Planting (1962): illustrative. It shows the succulents Judge noted on the cut above the house and the young tree beside the entry court.

Interiors. These are fitted out from Shulman's 1961–62 interiors (3378-10 to -17K) on the plan positions of sheets 6 and 2/1:

• fir plank decks and Judge's open-shelf rails with books;
• the walnut kitchen run, wall oven and copper refrigerator along the 60° partition, and the sink peninsula beside the spiral stair;
• a white core with Judge's large painting, and red-brown sliding closet doors with white pulls (3378-13K);
• the built-in seat with yellow and pink cushions on a dark base, a low Saarinen pedestal table, two Eames aluminium-group lounge chairs and a deep-blue rya rug (3378-17K);
• the dining table with shell chairs and yellow mums, and a grey banquette along the rail (3378-10; its position is interpreted);
• monstera, philodendron and palms in clay pots round the white spiral stair, kept below the upper floor, and a stand-in for the Dora De Larios figure.

Timeline. Seventeen stages, from the crated frame in December 1957 to the empty lot today, each showing only what stood on the lot at that date. Dates come from the BJD documents, the archive chronology and the fact-check ledger. Each stage says whether its date is documented or inferred and names its sources. The deck date is not documented anywhere, and the frame's raising is either July or autumn 1958. The crane and the load-test bags are drawn for illustration. Neighbouring houses appear from their assessor year built; houses demolished since are not in that record.

Shulman's views. Each thumbnail puts the camera where Julius Shulman stood (Getty Research Institute, 2004.R.10, Job 3378) and lays his print over the model; the slider fades between the two.

• The stations are solved from the outline of the sphere, the horizon and, for 3378-7, the bearing to City Hall.
• His view camera kept verticals plumb with a rising front, so the presets use a level camera with a shifted lens.
• Matches are close but not exact. The arrows nudge the camera and the readout gives the numbers.
• The ground is today's, so where the hill was later regraded it will not line up.
• The colour transparencies are balanced for display; the originals are badly faded.

Hollywood Sign. The nine letters on Mount Lee, 1.3 km north, are placed from their coordinates at their real size (45 ft high, about 350 ft long), reading HOLLYWOOD as they did after 1949.

Life. Clouds, birds and cars on today's streets are atmosphere, not record. Dusk lights the house from inside, after Shulman's twilight frame 3378-22. The tour button flies the main views.

Stays. 3/32 in 7×7 aircraft cable, three from the top of each sprit, threaded through the hollow first rivet of a strut (sheet 3). Which neighbours each sprit stays to is not drawn anywhere; the layout shown is one balanced reading.