How to Make a Geodesic Dome

The Biosphere is a reinforced geodesic dome : it contains a "first layer" which is a normal geodesic dome and a "second layer" which is a dual geodesic dome. The two layers allow the geodesic dome to be more robust.

Here you'll learn how to make a geodesic dome, with the example of the Biosphere.

•  Step 1 : We begin with a polyhedron. There are three polyhedrons we can use : a tetrahedron, an octahedron or an icosahedron, which correspond to the variable N as you can see here. Most of the time, we build a geodesic dome with an icosahedron (N = 5). It's true in our example : the Biosphere. 

• Step 2 : Then, we cut every side in a + b equal segments (click here for more information a and b). In our case, a = 16 and b = 0. So, we link the vertex with the one which is at the right, in order to have 16 segments at the left.
  
  
  

• Step 3 : We do it again for the two other side. All triangles are equilateral (except some triangles on the edge of each side when the geodesic dome belongs not to the class I).

• Step 4 : We do steps 2 and 3 for all the other faces.
  
  
  

• Step 5 : We build the circumscribed sphere on the polyhedron, and we name the center O. We created the vertices of the geodesic dome, which are the intersection points between the sphere and lines passing by O and vertices of "little triangles" created in step 4. The new points are rely if and only if they come from vertices belong to the same triangle created in the step 4.
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Step 6 : We delete the lines of construction : the geodesic dome is now finished !