Hello from Gaza,
About a year ago, while trying to find a practical way to provide shelter for my family under the current conflict and severe shortage of conventional building materials, I started thinking about a different approach.
The idea was to rely on short, repeated structural elements that could potentially be produced from locally available or recovered materials, including material salvaged from damaged buildings.
After months of studying different structural systems, I became increasingly interested in geodesic domes because of their ability to create relatively large structures from many small repeated parts.
What started as research for a shelter gradually became a much larger engineering project.
During this process, I developed Dome of Drums, a SketchUp extension dedicated to the design and fabrication of dome and gridshell structures.
The tool now goes far beyond standard geodesic domes. It includes systems such as:
Geodesic and Geodesic Hex structures, Zonohedral and Zome systems, reciprocal / Nexorade structures, geodesic tunnels, different grid-shell configurations, and several experimental systems that I have developed during the project.
One of the most important features is that the user can also take almost any 2D grid or line pattern and project it onto a dome or another shell profile, then convert that geometry into a buildable structural system.
The dome profile itself does not have to be a semicircle. It can be generated from many different arch profiles, including pointed, elliptical, multi-centered and other forms inspired partly by traditional and Islamic arch geometry.
The software also deals with the parts needed for actual fabrication rather than only generating lines in space.
It can generate physical timber or steel members, connection systems, reciprocal structures, hubs, doors and windows, shell or cover patterns, and fabrication reports with dimensions and cutting information.
There is also a system for generating cover patterns, similar to sewing patterns, for fabric or membrane skins.
Another part of the tool can generate reusable casting molds for repeated structural blocks. This is particularly important for us because it could allow shelters to be built from locally available earth or other cast materials when conventional cement or timber is difficult to obtain.
At this point, the project has moved beyond being only a computer experiment. The goal now is to expand the work into more full-scale construction and use it to serve families and communities here.
What I need most now is help connecting with people who may have experience in:
Support does not necessarily have to be financial. Technical advice, introductions to humanitarian organizations, engineering review, material expertise, or help connecting with potential partners would all be extremely valuable.
If anyone here has experience in these areas, or simply wants to help us move the project from digital design into wider real-world construction, I would be very grateful to hear from you.
You can contact me directly at:
m7md....@gmail.com
Thank you from Gaza.
Dome of Drums
From Simple Parts to Shelter.



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Thank you for the warning, but I believe the conclusion being drawn here is unfair, so I would like to clarify a few points.
I am the person behind the post and the project, and the project is real. It is not an attempt to contact people in order to ask them for money. I have been working for some time on developing a specialized tool for designing domes and grid-shell structures, and I can demonstrate the software running directly inside SketchUp, along with the models, design results, and development stages.
Yes, I may sometimes use AI tools to help me write or improve English text, especially since English is not my first language, and I may also use AI-generated images for presentation purposes. But using AI does not make the project, or the person behind it, fraudulent. A presentation image is not evidence that the engineering work or the software itself does not exist.
In fact, this is very easy to verify. You can simply ask me for a copy of the software, and I will send you a trial version so you can test it yourself immediately. I can also send you the actual SketchUp model shown in the image as an SKP file, so you can open it, inspect it, and verify it yourself.
As for posting the same message in more than one specialist community, including this group and SketchUcation, I believe that is completely normal for a project specifically aimed at SketchUp users and people interested in dome and structural design. The purpose is to reach people with experience in this field and receive genuine technical discussion and feedback.
I think it is unfair to publicly warn others that someone may be a scammer based mainly on Gemini’s analysis of an image or a piece of text, without first contacting that person or asking for any evidence of the project.
I am not asking you to simply believe me. Ask for the evidence and test it yourself. After you have verified that the project and the software are genuine, I believe I would deserve an apology for having my credibility questioned publicly.
Your point that “non-specialists can produce working prototypes with AI” does not invalidate the work that has been done, nor does it prove anything about the credibility of the project. AI is a tool, like any other tool. The relevant question is not whether I used AI, but whether the product is real, whether it works, and whether the results I claim can be independently tested. I have already offered every practical way to verify that.
You can request a trial version and run the software yourself. I can send you the resulting SKP files, demonstrate the plugin working directly inside SketchUp, and discuss the technical details with you. To me, that is the reasonable way to evaluate software, not to require the developer of a commercial project to publish the entire source code on GitHub.
As for the fact that I am from Gaza, I am not mentioning that to ask anyone for sympathy, and I am not a beggar. I mention Gaza because it is genuinely part of the story of this project and part of the circumstances that led to its creation and development. I strongly object to having the place I live, or the conditions in which I work, turned into yet another reason to question my integrity.
You are absolutely entitled to be skeptical. You are entitled to ask for evidence, and I actually encourage you to do so. But there is a difference between healthy skepticism and publicly presenting someone as a potential scammer, then dismissing the practical evidence when it is offered.
I am prepared to verify every aspect of this project in a direct and technical way. I only ask that you be as fair in your judgment as you expect me to be transparent.
And, by the way, this message was translated with ChatGPT. 😉
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I understand your criticism of the image, and I have already addressed that point: the image was illustrative and AI-generated, and I should have made that explicit when I posted it. I accept that criticism, and I will make sure to be clearer about that in the future.
What I strongly reject, however, is the way the use of AI is being treated in your comments as if it were suspicious in itself, almost as if it were an accusation or a crime.
Yes, I have used AI in parts of my work, and I will continue to use it when it is useful. I am an architectural engineer from Gaza, and the team working with me has spent around six months, under very difficult conditions, developing this tool. The software did not appear at the click of a button, and it is still under active development, as are the website and the other parts of the project.
Your point that “non-specialists can produce working prototypes with AI” does not invalidate the work that has been done, nor does it prove anything about the credibility of the project. AI is a tool, like any other tool. The relevant question is not whether I used AI, but whether the product is real, whether it works, and whether the results I claim can be independently tested. I have already offered every practical way to verify that.
You can request a trial version and run the software yourself. I can send you the resulting SKP files, demonstrate the plugin working directly inside SketchUp, and discuss the technical details with you. To me, that is the reasonable way to evaluate software, not to require the developer of a commercial project to publish the entire source code on GitHub.
As for the fact that I am from Gaza, I am not mentioning that to ask anyone for sympathy, and I am not a beggar. I mention Gaza because it is genuinely part of the story of this project and part of the circumstances that led to its creation and development. I strongly object to having the place I live, or the conditions in which I work, turned into yet another reason to question my integrity.
You are absolutely entitled to be skeptical. You are entitled to ask for evidence, and I actually encourage you to do so. But there is a difference between healthy skepticism and publicly presenting someone as a potential scammer, then dismissing the practical evidence when it is offered.
I am prepared to verify every aspect of this project in a direct and technical way. I only ask that you be as fair in your judgment as you expect me to be transparent.
And, by the way, this message was translated with ChatGPT. 😉
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My friend, let me tell you a small Arabic joke first.
Two men were looking at something dark standing on a hill in the distance. One said, “That is a goat.” The other said, “No, it is a bird.” They argued for a while. Then the thing suddenly spread its wings and flew away.
The second man said, “See? I told you it was a bird.”
The first man replied, “It is a goat, even if it flies.”
In Arabic, we say “a goat, even if it flies” about someone who has already decided what he wants to believe and keeps defending that conclusion no matter what evidence appears.
And honestly, I am starting to feel that this is where our discussion is going.
So please, tell me clearly: what exactly would you like me to provide in order to prove to you that I am neither a scammer nor a beggar?
I have offered you the software, a trial version, the actual SKP files, and a direct demonstration of the plugin working inside SketchUp. If none of that is enough, then please tell me specifically what would be enough.
Regarding the Facebook page, it did not suddenly appear yesterday. It is an old personal page/account that I have used for around 14 years, which is why it has followers. I have now decided to use it to present my work and my project as I move more seriously into software development. I genuinely do not understand what is suspicious about that.
Every time I answer one concern, another one seems to replace it. At some point, the question stops being “Can this project be verified?” and becomes “How can we keep finding reasons to remain suspicious?”
So I am asking you directly and sincerely: what evidence would you actually accept?
Give me a clear standard, and if it is reasonable, I will do my best to provide it.
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Thank you, Adrian!
I see it both a great service, and even praiseworthy, that you took it upon yourself to probe and report in a way that protects the integrity of the Group's channel and the interests of the Community Members.
I know that the "correspondant" will find it hard to gain the necessary credibility, under those circumstances, but maybe there is some recognized 3rd-party non-profit organization that can offer assurances that such "emerging" entrepreneurs are indeed pursuing legit endeavours!
If such NGOs exist, then I feel that should be the focus of any efforts beyond the initial concept stages ... so as to ensure early and easier access to resources, be they human, financial, or otherwise.
Just a thought!
Eric
P.S. I just did a lookup on Google, which reported the following:
* NGOi (NGO International Organizational Certification)
* HQAI (Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative)
* GlobalGiving - Middle East (also GlobalGiving)
* Candid
and one last one:
EAJM
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Adrian, and others,
Would it be too risky to go down the road of
before reaching the hurdle of
at which point the necessary "validation" process would kick in?
Eric M.
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Mohammed,
Understand that, when come times to make any financial arrangement, the expression
will absolutely NOT fly!
You will categorically need to provide the assurances, in whatever form is requested, by those that will be making the financial commitments.
Which is why I suggested that the discussion here be limited to technical feasibility, and to defer the due diligence to when "the pedal must hit the metal"!
Having said that, Adrian's words of caution
Everyone can move forward while keeping an eye open for potential "land mines"! Sorry for the reference, but it is very appropriate to the context of widespread and pervasive sophisticated fraud. You will need to accept that "external" attitude and respond constructively, as you've done so far, whenever it is encountered.
Good luck in your endeavours!
Eric M.
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