Geodesic Dome

Geodesic domes (and spheres), patented by Buckminster Fuller in 1951, are polyhedra whose vertices lie on the surface of a sphere. Like an egg, lightbulb, balloon or bubble, the forces on a sphere are distributed evenly across its surface. Fuller's insight was that a sphere could be approximated by an easy-to-build mesh of triangles. Straight struts form the edges of the triangles, and the ends of those struts are joined at the vertices. One of the best-known geodesic spheres is Spaceship Earth at Disney's Epcot, shown to the right.

If you're going to Burning Man, one of the most critical questions you must answer is: how are you going to shelter yourself from the elements? For many people a tent is fine, and tents have the advantage of being lightweight and small when packed. But they only accomodate a few people, and they become ovens in the desert sun. So, at Burning Man, people have turned to geodesic domes. Domes are unbeatable when it comes to maximizing the floor space and volume of a structure for minimum parts weight and size.

The dome's struts can be nearly anything. One of the best choices, and also one of the cheapest, and also one of the easiest to work with, is plain old electrical conduit, also known as EMT (Electrical Metallic Tubing). There are several successful companies that fabricate and sell domes made exclusively of EMT and a handful of bolts. Easily half of all domes at Burning Man are made of EMT

In 2000 and 2001 I slept in a tent at Burning Man, and it was a pain. I decided to live in luxury in 2002, and I built myself a 17 foot diameter 2-frequency dome. I based my design on the instructions at Desert Domes, a site I highly recommend.

10' conduit stock was hacksawed into two pieces of differing lengths.

The shit was beaten out of the conduit with a sledgehammer until the ends were flat, using an aluminum block for support.

A lead brick held one flat end while the other was beaten, so the ends would be coplanar.

A simple jig made from a 2x4, some aluminum C-channel and an angle bracket held the strut for drilling.

The drilled ends were clamped in a vise and bent to the correct angle.

Fabrication time for the dome was about eight hours, and the parts cost (conduit, hardware, a titanium drill) was less than $120. A total of 35 long and 30 short struts were now ready (along with a couple extras). The gallery at Warehouse 23 was barely big enough to test-assemble the dome.

At Burning Man

There is, however, plenty of room at Burning Man. The dome was unpacked and assembled in about 45 minutes on Sunday evening.

The dome was covered with a giant plastic tarp, because I didn't have enough time to prepare a better cover beforehand. The tarp made it stiflingly hot inside during the day, but it was a price I was willing to pay to keep the elements away from all the computers and electronics gear inside. Proper ventilation is very important; the most straightforward way is to have a hole at the top so convection can work. Inside, a large canvas dropcloth was the "floor".

Monday 8/26. A white parachute helped (a little) to reflect some of the sun's heat away.

Friday. Inside the dome, Dylan chooses some tunes. The interior was lit with digital color-changing lights made by my employer, Color Kinetics.

Monday 9/2. I'm the last person to finish packing and leave camp.

If you need some kind of portable shelter to be used for a few days at a time, I highly recommend building a geodesic dome! In one day's time you can build a strong, light and spacious structure that will last for years and years.