Cheap alternative geodesic dome home

For outdoor living in a commune or alone here is a cheap or even free alternative to a Tepee or a Yurt, this is a geodesic dome home made from cardboard, glue and for waterproofing gloss paint the inside can be insulated using foil. We built one in the late sixties and if done with care can provide a waterproof home although we didn’t use ours as a permanent home we used it occasionally as did guests it lasted for a few years until we dismantled it but others we knew lived in these as a permanent home quite comfortably.


You will need the following items;


30 sheets of strong cardboard the larger the sheet the bigger the dome try shops that sell beds and mattresses or if money is no object large sheets can be bought from cardboard wholesalers.


An industrial staple gun and staples long enough to go through the two sheets of cardboard.


Foil for insulation and spray glue.


Polyurethane or oil based paint.


If you can get hold of tubes of silicone and gun then use this to fill in the joints or fill with paint.


Cut the thirty sheets of cardboard into equilateral triangles 4 feet or larger sides, allowing an inch on all three sides for flaps for stapling at this point if you are going to insulate then glue the foil onto the back of the cardboard.


Bend the flaps if you are using silicone run a bead along the flap before stapling this will ensure a waterproof seal.


Staple five triangles together to form a pentagon when you have finished you will have six pentagons these are joined together to form your half sphere.


When you stand this on the ground it will be standing on 5 points neatly cut these points off and use the cut offs to fill in the dome.
Run beads of silicone along the joints and the bottom of the dome allow to dry and then give the structure several coats of either oil based or polyurethane paint making sure that the dome is well covered and there are no holes.


You will need to place the dome on a waterproof base this can be a large sheet of plastic glued to the inside walls of the dome.


If you need a window then use Perspex and fix using silicone obviously you will need a door just use cardboard.

 

Sounds really cool. Is this like the single layer corrugated cardboard or thicker ? Would gaylord boxes , those big 1" thick or so boxes that sit on pallets work or would that be to thick and heavy ? Those are usually close to 4' sized cubes. At least the ones I used to work with.

I saw a design for this on instructables.com not to long ago that sounds similar to this.

~peace

 

I built a small one out of electrical conduit.

 

As far as I can remember the cardboard we used was two flat sides and corrugated in the middle about a quater of an inch thick I suppose you could adapt anything as long as you can join the edges together and seal them somehow experiment with a couple of sheets before building it