It was the message from the client that took away the sleep…
11 December 2019 the violent winter storm in Iceland had to reach its peak with intense snowfall and close to 250 km/h gusts. In the middle of that storm appeared the Aurora Basecamp, housed in three igloo tents manufactured and installed by Polidomes company. Located on the outskirts of the town of Hafnarfjörður, south of Reykjavík, 3 Polidomes glamping tents had to pass the harsh test.
At this point let’s take a moment to look back in history. We started to build the geodesic dome tents back in 2008. A lot of practice in welding the PVC and similar fabrics made half of success. From the very start, we bet on the modern look and the highest quality of our geodesic dome structures. So all our tents we make of high-quality materials, with attention paid to the smallest of details, both in terms of durability and aesthetics.
Still, the main superiority of the dome tents is their geodesic structure! Long-known that geodesic domes are the strongest human shelter ever conceived. They are the world’s highest earthquake resistant structures! This was proven by the researches of the University of British Columbia during shake-table simulations of actual earthquakes. Full data on this curious research can be found in the article Shake Table Test Shows the Dome Shape is Virtually Earthquake-Proof. But still! Will our domes withstand a winter storm with hurricane-force winds that happens once in a blue moon?
All Polidomes team left without a sleep after receiving the emergency message from an anxious client, writing “How to prepare the domes to the violent winter storm?”. The biggest fear was that the gusts close to 250 km/h will just rap off the cover from the geodesic steel structure. Furthermore, except the dangerous winds, Iceland monster cyclone with pressure near 940 mbar significantly enhanced severe weather threat as an extreme amount of snow. Not every building can stand the ‘bombogenesis’ cyclone like this one, and what can we say about the tent? Anyway, we all – Aurora Basecamp and Polidomes teams, just had to wait till the sun will show again over the Hafnarfjörður.
As soon as the storm drifted away, we were notified that Polidomes geodesic structures did a great job! To be specific the owner of the Basecamp wrote us a pleasant message: “Your tents are awesome:-) There is absolutely no sign of any damage. Congratulations”. Polidomes’ P150 and both P110 dome tents showed to be real emergency shelters, being able to keep people safe in the most severe weather conditions.
In fact, this test also proves that we never cut corners on our products – starting from the smallest Polidome 20 and finishing the huge Polidome 1000. Our clients can always count on the best-quality geodesic dome tents!