
A Frameless Geodesic Dome (2013) - karim
http://rigsomelight.com/2013/09/09/frameless-geodesic-dome.html
======
Animats
_In order to shed rain and be fastened to each other, the plastic sheets
overlap each other as shingles on a roof would._

OK, that's good; a reasonable approach to leaks.

 _It’s all held together with bolts that bolt through all the layers. The
shell of the dome is about 2 1 /2 inches thick._

That's not so good. Many potential leak points. Stress concentration at the
bolt holes. The plastic may tear. Nothing holding the edges together with a
tight seal. Almost all the problems with geodesic domes are at the joints. The
author is vague about how the joints work.

Buckminster Fuller's concept for geodesic domes was that they were to be made
from factory-built components and modern materials. They were to be products
of the industrial age. In a factory, parts could be made to tight tolerances
and be weathertight. With modern durable materials such as aluminum and
Fiberglas, the domes could have long lives. During the 1950s, many such domes
were built for radar stations. There are large radomes in the Canadian north
abandoned decades ago, but still standing.

Then came the era of hippie domes, which were built by hand from "natural
materials". This did not end well. The author of Domebook I and II has
repudiated his work, after a long history of failed structures. Trying to
shingle a sphere does not work well. Nor does trying to fit a standard window
into a dome. Nothing quite fits, and there are too many bad seams. All this
gave geodesic domes a bad name.

The domes in this article look like the ones from Dome Village in LA, but less
rugged. [1] That was an attempt to house homeless people. The Fiberglas domes
of Dome Village held up fine for 13 years; the project failed for other
reasons.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_Village](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_Village)

~~~
brudgers
Factory tolerances are not the key ingredient for weather tight buildings.
Water and air management at the joints is. Good management can be achieved by
careful design or by proven practice. Proven practice is why shingles can be
weathertight with only moderate attention.

The reason hippie domes leaked is getting the details right during
construction is hard and foregoing proven practice makes it much much harder.

Like pretty much every machined building concept other than the mobile home,
Fuller's ideas were unsuccessful. Mostly because building weathertight
buildings is a solved problem. The solutions are just not evenly distributed.

~~~
Animats
There's a huge success story in machined buildings - Butler Buildings.[1] They
have about 100 standard steel parts, from which industrial and farm buildings
can easily be constructed. Rural America has millions of their buildings, from
small sheds to large factories. They offer wall and roof sections with and
without insulation. (Their site promotes the fancier options for schools,
malls, and churches, but the volume is in the plain metal ones.)

There are competing systems, such as Behlen.[2] ("Good iron. GREAT
experience"). All these systems bolt together on site, usually mounted to a
concrete slab. Such buildings are dull, boring, weathertight, easy to erect,
and durable. They're rarely seen in cities, so many people don't know about
them. But get thirty miles outside a big city and they're everywhere.

[1]
[http://butlermfg.com/en/butler_systems_details](http://butlermfg.com/en/butler_systems_details)
[2] [http://behlenbuildingsystems.com/resources/photo-
gallery/agr...](http://behlenbuildingsystems.com/resources/photo-
gallery/agricultural/)

~~~
brudgers
Pre-engineered metal buildings [1] like those offered by Butler are an
excellent form of construction for many applications. The components are
fabricated using standard processes of the steel industry (milling, extrusion,
roll forming, etc.).

To the degree these create a machined building in agreggate, then likewise the
aggregate of dimensional lumber, plywood, OSB, asphalt shingles, gypsum board,
concrete masonry, insulated concrete forms, etc.

[1]: For what it is worth most pre-engineered metal buildings in the US come
from mom-and-pop shops rather than the big players like Butler because
engineering is engineering and roll formed steel production is a commodity.

------
roel_v
This is cool to play with and all, but what rubs me the wrong way about posts
like this is the delusional 'look I made something that is applicable as
anything but a novelty! I'm solving major societal problems here!'. This thing
doesn't have windows, it requires replacing panels on the outer shell every
few years, you can't build up not even 1 level and has virtually no sound
insulation so horrible in term of land use, doesn't have walls solid enough to
put plumbing in let alone fix anything else to, doesn't meet any building
regulation in terms of safety - not even if you take regulations from 30 years
ago, ...

I understand the draw and see the romanticism of living like a hermit in a
forest; really I do. But for some reason people delude themselves into
thinking that this can scale. When you're saying 'I love nature so much, I'm
going to go live right in the middle of it!', it's like saying 'I love my
horse so much, I'm going to eat it tonight'. Which is fine - I eat horse meat.
But don't claim you're 'loving' it in the same way normal people use the word
'love'.

~~~
mmjaa
On the other hand, you'd be surprised with how little you actually need in
order to survive and live a peaceful, happy life. Building regulations are
fine - if you wanna be a normal, living a normal life, in a normal society.

But the world is a pretty big place. We don't all need these norms.

You might have a morally authoritative view on just what basic needs a human
has, and certainly can justify these requirements with a human ideal forged in
your own social context, but the real honest truth is, most of those ideals
are arbitrary.

A lot of people can live without windows, especially if they're surrounded by
nature 100% of the time, anyway. Plumbing? Who needs it if the rest of your
property is set up for it - not everyone needs to live a decadent western
lifestyle where running water is on demand within a few feet of your sleeping
area, etc.

A lot of the world survives just fine without all of these requirements, and
from that perspective this "romanticism" is less of a fantasy, and more of a
"what if .. we could live simpler lives, instead of more complex ones" \- and
that is the real merit of articles like this. To push us outside the "glass-
half-empty/-full" norms that, ultimately, a lot of us are trapped in.

("Normal people use the word 'love'": Please tell me, what is normal. Because
I don't believe you have a large enough sample size, honestly, based on your
professed view...)

~~~
pamqzl
If someone wants to live without the benefit of a whole lot of things which
are really really nice to have, like plumbing, then they have my blessing.

But even if _that_ is your desire, then a dome is a ridiculous way to achieve
it, compared to a rectangular structure with a pitched roof, which is easier
to build, more stable, is less likely to leak, will probably last longer, and
gives you more efficient use of space and materials. Domes solve nothing.

~~~
dTal
Domes minimize radiative cooling per unit volume?

------
donquichotte
The article mentions yurts and then goes on saying "at the same time the
frameless dome provides a living area that is protected by a solid insulated
waterproof shell. This is absent in these other lightweight structures."

I beg to differ! Yurts as used in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan often have several
layers, at least one of them being water-proof. The innermost layer is often
wool, which offers excellent insulation and can be dried quickly when it gets
wet from prespiration, offering some sort of climate control. Mongolians
experience ultra harsh continental climate, going from -40°C in winter to
+40°C in the summer, and they have used yurts for centuries.

Source: stayed in yurts in Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan for a total of
several weeks on a motorcycle tour, went to a yurt market to check out the
building materials in Ulaan Baatar.

------
chromagnon
The structure seems to be relying on bolts, plastic sheeting and foam for all
of its strength. Even bolts are not usually considered structural elements,
since the sheer strength of bolts is negligible - much less plastic or foam.

The whole idea of geodesic domes is that the trianglular sides distribute load
more efficiently. In this case, there's nothing that could be described as
load bearing. It's a semi-rigid tent that will disintegrate in a strong
breeze.

------
Tepix
If you're having problems finding a suitable frame for your geodesic dome,
consider bamboo. There's a guide prepared by Buckminster Fuller himself at
[http://www.desertdomes.com/bamboo.html](http://www.desertdomes.com/bamboo.html)
and Mitra Ardron made a variant with continuous poles at
[http://www.mitra.biz/joomla/blog/2815-instructions-for-
makin...](http://www.mitra.biz/joomla/blog/2815-instructions-for-making-a-
bamboo-geodesic-dome) (are there metric versions?)

------
bfu
I have few questions:

    
    
        - Is it livable in temperate zone (-20°C in winter)? 
        - Is that single sheet plastic window? How does it insulate in winter?
        - Is it dark inside?
        - Can plants survive inside?
        - Building codes usually have minimal volume for bedrooms, does it meet those standards/recommendations?
        - What's 2x4?
        - What's blueboard?
        - Post some closeup pictures of doors, windows, top and base from the outside
        - How do doors open?
        - Why the working table have so massive bottom? Is it just "art"? Seems like it's unnecessarily heavy.
        - Wouldn't mass-produced triangles be simpler/cheaper?
    

Also I just noticed article is from September 2013!

Also previous HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6355488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6355488)

~~~
saagarjha
A 2x4 is a piece of lumber that measures around 2” by 4” in depth and breadth
(in reality, it’s slightly smaller) and is often used for structural work.

~~~
jonsen
( _it’s slightly smaller_ if it is planed)

~~~
chrsstrm
I genuinely hate that I'm going to say this, but... A 2x4 is 1.5" X 3.5" It's
not _approximately_ 2x4 or _slightly_ smaller than 2x4. Not that this adds
critical information regarding the article, but if you set out to work with
2x4s and assume they are 2" by 4", you'll be sorry. And yes, I have made that
mistake before, but it's a mistake you only make once.

~~~
c22
The lumber is cut to 2" x 4", but then it is dried causing it to shrink to
"about" 1.5" x 3.5"

~~~
birken
This is not correct. The standard construction 2x4 you buy at any lumber
yard/home improvement store is specifically cut to 1.5" x 3.5". Of course wood
naturally expands/contracts depending on the environment so it will never be
exactly those dimensions, but quite close (+/\- 1/32" I'd wager).

Likewise with plywood, most (but not all) plywood sold in the US is actually
slightly undersized. 3/4" is normally 23/32" thick, 1/2" is normally 15/32"
thick, etc. This isn't because the wood shrunk (though again plywood will
slightly expand/contract depending on the moisture of the environment), it's
because the manufacturers meant it to be a little thinner.

There are still manufacturing tolerances for both types of products, but the
lumber mills know what they are doing, they know what their customers require
and provide tolerances that match those. Just imagine one very common usage: a
deck. You think deck builders would be happy if the dimensional lumber wasn't
a) very consistently the same thickness and b) very consistently the same
width? Otherwise you'd have a very bumpy deck that looked pretty irregular.

------
King-Aaron
Note: Do not use an open flame or heat source inside an enclosed space made
from polyurethane/plastic/nylon

 _See: Agonising death_

~~~
bonesss
Isn't there a pretty good chance that the horrible plastic smoke will make you
pass out before the death kicks in, making it just terrifying and brutal but
not agonizing?

~~~
King-Aaron
I've seen the results of tents catch on fire - I don't know about the panels
in the dome in OP's link, but certain plastics etc can burn _extremely_
quickly. A normal pop-up tent will burn to the ground in a matter of seconds,
cocooning anything inside in molten plastic.

~~~
dvtv75
I can believe this. I used to work in "the Warehouse" (store name, rather than
what it was). We were told that if there was a fire, particularly in the areas
containing mostly plastic, we were to get out as fast as possible, no heroics,
no trying to put the fire out: just scram. One of the larger buildings they
owned caught fire a few years before I started, and had burned up by the time
the fire department got there.

------
sushimako
Show HN: Years ago, some friends and I designed & built a dome/hexayurt
hybrid[0] for Burning Man. The walls are made of insulation sheets and the
hinges are taped with 6" bi-directional filament tape (many here will know
Hexayurts[1], I'm sure). Additionally it has connection-edges which feature a
system of fabric-strips and 2" velcro to connect edges reliably. In total it
consists of 3 separate, foldable pieces that can be set up in ~20 minutes by 2
people, even in windy situations. It has 2 "windows", the pointy things on the
sides. The door is a bit small and definitely requires some flexibility
getting in and out :) It survived the harsh desert conditions of 3 years at
Burning Man so far, incl strong winds and rainstorms, only requiring a bit of
tlc between each year. The "strap-down-spider" tightens the structure down
against winds and keeps it firm enough that you can easily lean against it. To
make it fully rain-proof, one needs to tape the floor-tarp up against the
walls (visible in the pictures). Apart from the floor-taping the setup and
tear-down is entirely zero-waste, due to the velcro system. Hexayurt
enthusiast might notice the silver tape that covers the filament-tape seams,
which helps protect the tape from deteriorating in the UV light (w/o the
silver tape, the filament tape would go brittle after abt 1-2wks of direct
sunlight).

Here[3] is some very outdated documentation on the first version. We initially
tried to connect the walls via bungees - didn't work out at all as you can
imagine. The following year we added the velcro system after I found this
amazing post [2] on a hexayurt mailing-list, describing someone's experiments
with materials. Without that person's efforts and time spent on research I
could have never finished this one!

Of course there's already a bunch improvements lined up for a v2 - hopefully
next year :)

[0] [http://imgur.com/a/8K1dR](http://imgur.com/a/8K1dR)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexayurt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexayurt)

[2]
[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/hexayurt/2QRUl3txk-8/v_A0DDc...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/hexayurt/2QRUl3txk-8/v_A0DDcSeCAJ)

[3] [http://flo.jottit.com/moonberry](http://flo.jottit.com/moonberry)

~~~
tln
Neat! Nice work

Does it stay livable in the Nevada desert sun? What's the interior temp in the
afternoon

~~~
sushimako
Thanks! During peak-temperatures of the day it's definitely warm inside, yet
cozy/cool enough to have a nap. Also kept the warmth inside at cold nights.

------
davedx
From what I gather, it's made from plastic, foam and wood, and uses electrical
heating. I didn't see any mention of fire risks, which is something people
have brought up before with these structures. I hope there's at least a fire
extinguisher in there.

------
yborg
As an exercise in low-cost structure construction this is interesting, but
this is not a practical home. It apparently lacks any kind of sanitary
facilities or kitchen. As noted in the blog itself, it's comparable to a tent
in terms of applications.

------
tjic
> 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.

~~~
logfromblammo
The only success stories I have heard about with respect to dome construction
do not use any sheet material at all.

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.

------
athenot
A large-scale 2 dimension version of this was built for Terminal 2E and 2F at
the Paris CDG airport. It yields the same feeling of airiness and I'm always
happy to transit though that one.

[https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cdg%20terminal%202e](https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cdg%20terminal%202e)

Note that this design requires impeccable material strength characteristics.
Otherwise it will collapse, as 2E did in 2004:

[https://failures.wikispaces.com/Terminal+2E+at+Charles+de+Ga...](https://failures.wikispaces.com/Terminal+2E+at+Charles+de+Gaulle+Airport)

------
rebuilder
I'm left wondering about moisture. Ventilation seems pretty minimal and,
inside the walls, nonexistent, so how long until this has mold all over it?

------
goelakash
I did not understand how it is completely waterproof. What if there is rough
weather? And how does it prevent water from entering in case there is standing
water around the base?

~~~
inciampati
There is a platform under the dome to prevent standing water from entering it.
Further I would expect it would be best to build on a slight rise to mitigate
this issue. As for the waterproofness of the shell, as long as the higher
panels overlap those below them by a sufficient amount (maybe 10cm) then the
dome will shed water in even heavy storms.

------
novaleaf
one problem i've run into when making a shed is the flooring. unless you spend
a huge amount of time+effort+materials on a foundation, water vapor tends to
come up. This causes mold growth and eventually over the span of 5 to 10 years
the floor will rot out of under you. (I'm in the Pacific Northwest)

Does anyone have recommendations on a cheap moisture tolerant flooring? I am
thinking of using Marine-Grade plywood as a subfloor on my current project.

------
surething
This reminds me of Dome of Visions, which has now come out in 3 iterations.

[http://domeofvisions.com](http://domeofvisions.com)

------
resurge
This is Bruce Hauman's dome (creator of the Clojure library Figwheel)

I watched a video of the talk where this dome is mentioned last week.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-kj2qwJa_E&t=9m16s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-kj2qwJa_E&t=9m16s)

I was hoping there'd be some more info about the way he lives in general.
Seeing from the outside picture he also seems to grow his own food.

------
lozf
Hexayurts[0] > Domes

0: [http://hexayurt.com](http://hexayurt.com)

(sorry, I don't have time for a more detailed post just now).

------
prawn
Would you save much on materials by removing the lowest tier of sheets? You'd
lose standing room near the walls. Would you lose strength?

------
DonHopkins
Didn't Halliburton make a line of urban survival domes to go with their bubble
suits and management leisure suits?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzSMjSxM5Vo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzSMjSxM5Vo)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_dg6V8pQGo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_dg6V8pQGo)

------
manmal
Great idea and execution. I did not find any mentions of a toilet in there,
did I overlook something? How is this going to work?

~~~
hvidgaard
Given the portable nature of it, a toilet is not more than a bucket. Otherwise
it would require one of those expensive permanent installations for waste and
water. You do not want such a bucket inside if you can avoid it.

------
Applejinx
You could spray this with layers of gunnite and build up a sealed concrete
bubble. I think it'd be just as stable as an inflated form. Once you had an
'eggshell' layer of concrete, that would bear the weight of successive layers.
Might require taping over the edges of the 'shingles'.

------
somberi
A similar idea, but edible. [http://www.marthastewart.com/913141/sugar-cage-
jacques-torre...](http://www.marthastewart.com/913141/sugar-cage-jacques-
torres)

There was another with Jacques Pepin, that I am unable to find, where explains
the concept better.

------
stcredzero
This puts me to mind of a Bill Burr quote, about the real desire for guys to
spend $250k on a house.

------
0xbear
Tax appraisal: cost of structure $2100, cost of land $100k. Tax bill: half the
cost of structure per year plus school levies.

~~~
jakobegger
Not sure why you‘d use expensive land for a structure like this. You could
build this pretty much anywhere, so you could go for cheap land that‘s not
suitable for normal homes.

~~~
0xbear
Because you'd like to have access to public transportation or bike to work?

~~~
jakobegger
Right, but you could get a parcel of land that‘s very small, or steep, or
otherwise unusable for normal homes. Depending on local regulation, you also
might not need a building permit, or there might be a simplified procedure
since it is very small and/or temporary. (For example we have a lot of „green
land“ in Austria, where you are not allowed to build. For this reason it is
very cheap. But you can of course erect a tent on „green land“.)

------
jlebrech
could you lay the shape out flat first then pull it all in.

i would have 3d printed (or laser cut) something first.

