| > The geodesic dome is brilliant in how it minimizes the amount of materials needed to enclose a given space. Except sheet material is sold in rectangles, so you end up with a huge pile of offcuts. As a child I was entranced by geodesic domes in the late 1970s (part of the hangover of the utopian back-to-the-land movement), and I read up on them extensively over the following decades. I've also done a bit of construction. Domes are wildly impractical for almost every purpose. Yes, the hold more volume per surface area. That's great for a liquified natural gas tank. It's not so good for humans who live on flat surfaces. They are very hard to plumb and wire. They generate tons of waste. They are hard to maintain. Roofs and walls have different purposes (structural support vs shedding preciptation) and different materials are best for each. The list goes on. I could write a 500 page book on why domes are almost always the wrong answer, but the shortest proof I have is: if they were so great, they would have caught on. |
They use inflatable forms, flexible basalt fiber composite rebar or basalt reinforcement mesh, spray foam, and gunnite (sprayed concrete).
As far as I am aware, even those still have moisture problems.
As mentioned by parent, the article includes cutting patterns for rectangular sheets. All the edges and corners are waste. Every edge is a cut. If you make a dome shell out of panels, you have an incredibly high amount of joints and cracks for that volume, and every one of them could move water or air through the wall. The article itself mentioned that polypropylene breaks down in UV. Maintenance.
So I guess the intrepid geodesic dome builder should sew a big balloon out of pentagonal and hexagonal nylon panels, inflate it with one of those bounce-castle blowers, and spray it with gunnite. Then saw through the top of the shell and add a stick-built cupola for ventilation control and roof pitch. You lose the portability, but if you really need that, most people make do with a tent. Those come in dome shapes, if you really need your living space to be round.