A papercrete dome does not waste "yard after yard of plywood/plastic/mdf sheet material which has to be cut for many hours to sheath all that BuckyDome kewlness". It is made from papercrete, which has no waste at all if you are doing it right. Now if you build from plywood/OSB you have to do some fancy math to come up with a design that will efficiently use all of the standard size sheets, but it can be done.
When I built my dome frame from metal studs I tweaked the design for minimum waste. I ended up with a pile of 12"-18" long metal studs, maybe 50 of them, which is the equivalent of less than 10 8' studs. The mesh I covered the dome with had NO waste, it was cut to fit the triangles and used all the material. Papercrete has no waste. So, the total waste material from my dome was $25 worth of metal studs (contemporary prices). You can't get much more efficient than that. In reality you would have to have 30% more waste than a contemporary box design just to be equal, because domes enclose about 30% more space than an equivalent box (based on exposed area).
Spaceman
http://starship-enterprises.net/Domes/DomeHouse/DomeHouse%20Home.html
Chita Jing wrote:
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On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 3:49 AM, Keith G. Saturn <kgsaturn@gmail.com> wrote:
Why domes and vaults? [text removed for bandwidth only]...
Having looked at a variety of traditional forms, and tested some, I
conclude that a hoop house or vault is the right form for my needs.
Papercrete is an excellent - and plastic - material, which makes it a real contender for irregular or curved forms. A dome is only theoretically more efficient with respect to material use if you ignore the WASTE of yard after yard of plywood/plastic/mdf sheet material which has to be cut for many hours to sheath all that BuckyDome kewlness to protect it from rain, snow and birds.
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