Modular, faceted, block-and-shell node system for connecting elongate frame elements

A modular node system featuring interengageable, faceted node components for interconnecting elongate frame elements having ends and long axes, said system and included components comprising

• a node block including (1) an outwardly facing, faceted cradle formed with plural, adjacent, planar facets, and (2) outwardly facing, X, Y and Z frame-element attaching sites defining orthogonal, X, Y and Z attaching axes, each attaching site being designed to accommodate endo-attachment to the block of an elongate frame element with the long axis of such an attached element substantially coinciding with the attaching axis defined by the site, said attaching axes meeting at an intersection point which is spaced outwardly of the block relative to, and contained within a line extending centrally from, said cradle, and said sites being configured whereby a frame element attached to a site extends in its entirety from the node block oppositely away from both the cradle and the intersection point, and
• faceted shell structure formed with plural, adjacent, planar facets, shaped and adapted for joining plural, adjacent node blocks whose cradles are adjacent one another through anchored, coextensive, facet-to-facet, complementarily-nested seating of the shell structure in the adjacent cradles in adjacent blocks.

A system for forming a nodal connection between elongate structural elements, comprising,

• a block structure, useable in every nodal connection, capable of creating a juncture between elongate structural elements, and
• a shell structure, useable only if a user chooses to combine more than one of the block structures to create a combinational juncture, which is designed to hold, securably, at least two block structures.

A system for forming a nodal connection between elongate structural elements, comprising

• a block structure, useable to join plural elongate structural elements in every nodal connection, each such block structure providing structural support for the elongate elements, and
• a shell structure, designed to join the block structures in a combinational nodal connection, configured such that as nodal connections are formed in locations with increasing load-bearing requirements, the block and shell structures, and associatedly supported elongate structural elements, together provide appropriate, increasing, load-bearing support.