Not too long ago I did a piece on our sister blog, The Tinbasher, relating to architectural stainless steel buildings.

If you’re interested, you can take a look at my steel building article here.

According to this website:

Buckminsterfullerene is discovered by Sir Harold Kroto in the UK and Richard E. Smalley and Robert F. Curl, Jr in the US. These three researchers shared the 1996 Nobel prize in chemistry for their discovery. Buckminsterfullerene’s atoms are bonded together into a highly symmetrical, hollow polygon structure (resembling a sphere) with 60 vertices and 32 faces, 12 of which are pentagons and 20 of which are hexagons giving it the same geometry as that of a football. Named after the architect R Buckminster Fuller (Bucky) whose geodesic dome design is similar to the molecular structure of C60, these unique structures, also known as buckyballs, have led to an entirely new branch of chemistry.

Depending on whether you were dragged up or had a slightly more middle class academic upbringing, you will be inclined to regard the above planter as a fully welded football or as a stainless steel Buckminster Fullerene.

For the record, it should be noted that these were first cobbled together in response to an enquiry about footballs.

You can take a look at a few more pictures at the bottom of the page then cast your own vote.

They’re made made from 16mm mild steel and have yet to be finished/painted in copper/black. The little cross-pieces sticking out at the bottom are the bits that are to be sunk into some concrete and the curved bit is the actual front of the seat where you little legs dangle.

We had to get the bending done by Barnshaws in Manchester as 16mm is a bit on the thick side for us to do in-house. Hopefully, we’ll have some more pictures once they’re painted and a few more once they’ve been installed.

For the time being you can root around in the gallery to see some more pictures if that’s what you’d like to do.

We received the enquiry just before Christmas and sent them a sample once they were happy with the quote.

Stay tuned for pics once they’re finished!

Here they are at either side of the foyer as you walk in.

Here’s one of them from the front.

Here’s one from an angle. (Although I’m sure you can see that for yourselves.)

And here’s one from the other side.

I hope these pictures give you some idea of the scale of the things as I don’t know the actual sizes.

Considering stainless steel photographs so appallingly as it tends to show up every single mark and fingerprint, I don’t think the chap who did these has done that bad a job.