Pentagon Greenhouse
One of the reasons that I wanted to build a greenhouse, was to have Abraham Mao have places to hide and play.
I wanted to build for him a beautiful garden over time. However, unfortunately, he did not have that time. I still want to build him that greenhouse, in his memory. I hope that he likes it.
I first came across the idea of building a pentagon structure, during a Shrine Building workshop at Public Dreams where Ari Lazer talked about constructing stable geodesic structures quickly out of bamboo and bicycle tubing.
As I did more research, I came across the Star place connector system. Where you get a package of 11 connectors. You supply the 2 x 4 struts of same dimensions to build your greenhouse, or for that matter cabin, shed, and more.
To determine the size of struts, I had to do some calculations. The size of my base is 8 ft by 10 ft.
The shortest overall length (AF) of the Pentagon, is equal to 1.538841769 times the strut size. So, to have the base fit within 8 feet, on one side, I would need a strut size of 5' 2".
If I allow one corner (A) to exceed the base, I could use a strut size of 5' 4", for the length (AF) of 8' 2". If I went with this strut size, the longest length BC would be 8' 8" (strut size x magical phi 1.618033989). However, that is still more than a foot remaining on the base.
I wonder about an irregular pentagon, if I wanted BC to go up to 10 feet, the strut size DE would be 6' 2", while struts BD and CE would remain 5' 2". It seems a bit more complicated, as I am not sure how the side triangles would be like.
Reading up on these calculations, they mention the Golden Radio in Geometry. Seems to be of some fascination with the ancient Greeks as well as current fiction writers.
