My Geodesic Dome Trellis

Since I wrote a paper on Buckmister Fuller in college, I've been enthusiastic about geodesic domes.  They've always been in the back of my mind as something I really liked but had no space or practical use for.  That changed last year when we bought 100 acres of mostly raw land in Kentucky.  And last winter when I made a passing comment in a reddit thread that someone had built a geodesic dome from scratch out of wood, someone responded telling me about about the Hubs kit.  Given the low price of the kit, and my guess that I'd be able to get 2x2s inexpensively (as cheap as they can be during the record high prices), I pulled the trigger and ordered the hubs kit.  One of the interesting features about the hubs kit is that you can make the sticks as long as you want, as long as they're proportionate to each other.  After a bit of back and forth and some math, I figured the ideal ratio to make the most out of an 8' board.  If you're curious, my stick lengths were 1295 mm(50.98” ) and 1135mm (44.69”) , this gave me under 1/4" of waste per board. As the dome required 35 long sticks, and 30 short, I was stuck with waste in the length of 5 short sticks, but I'm always coming up uses for scrap wood in the garden, so no big deal.  I intended to get 2x2 lumber (about the largest diameter these hubs will support), but all of the 2x2s at the store looked awful, so I saved some money and got 1x2s.  The hubs kit came to $175, and the 8' 1x2s cost me about $75 (this was an outrageous price btw).  I picked up a quart of black paint for a darker look and to somewhat protect the wood, and painted all the sticks, then a few days later, had my husband give me a hand holding them while I screwed the ball joints into the ends of them.  A few days after that, my mom and I assembled the dome in 45 minutes, and we were set!


The plan for this dome has always been to function as a trellis/arbor for some hardy kiwi vines, however, in mid-May, it was getting a little late to mail order and then plant perennial vines on land where we do not yet have running water for easy irrigation.  So I left the trellis bare until I got my stuff together and got annuals planted.  I planted what were supposed to be dwarf butternut squash (and maybe they were a little smaller than others I've seen?), 2 plants that were in the same pot.  They took a little while to really start growing, but they've taken off.  One thing that may be helpful is I got a stretchy rope (apparently this is called shock chord) and wrapped it around the sticks so I could tuck the vine under it to hold it on as I trained it around the sticks.  




I was hoping that the vine would be thick enough to provide meaninful shade, which it didn't really.  I have hopes that the kiwis will fill in enough that it'll be a nice shady spot to sit.  So far this year, we've harvested 24 squash from it, and have several more ripening.  



Overall, I'm very happy with the design, the height is perfect, I can just barely touch the top when I stand on my tippy toes (I'm 5'8") so I feel like I'm making the most of the space while still retaining easy management.

Could this work for grapes? Also any recommendations on books or movies about Buckmister Fuller?

T Blankinship wrote:Could this work for grapes? Also any recommendations on books or movies about Buckmister Fuller?

I expect it could work for grapes.  You'd want a way to "tie" the vines to the dome until they got woody.  I haven't personally grown grapes before, so i'm not sure how much pruning needs to be done with the vines or how longlived your trellis needs to be.  If it needs a more long term trellis, you could use either electrical conduit, hardwood sticks (if you can find enough straight ones) or a better quality wood of some sort.  Additional considerations for the fruit - at worst it grows vertically along the lower portions, but as it gets higher, the grapes will hang down making checking and harvesting them much easier, however do the grapes need sunlight to ripen?  If so, they may not get enough depending on the thickness of your cover.  Also any pruning needing to be done at the top of the dome could become difficult without a ladder or tall stepstool(but not one too tall as it may not fit through the  holes in your dome)

Regarding Fuller, I honestly don't remember what books I used for my research on him (this was ~15 years ago). I haven't come across any documentaries specifically about him, although a little web searching turned up a ton of different documentaries. He gets lumped in with the populist visionary folks wanting to create affordable housing for the masses, with Frank Lloyd Wright, but never achieved the level of success or architectural acclaim that Wright did (also most of Wright's famous creations were expensive one-offs, where Fuller's legacy is factory produced housing).  You can see the clear difference in scale between Fullers home and Wright's personal residences.

Oh I love it! Thank you for sharing the details. If I can come up with some lumber I may try it! I guess the hub kit is necessary. No way to make your own?

Rachel McCarty wrote:Oh I love it! Thank you for sharing the details. If I can come up with some lumber I may try it! I guess the hub kit is necessary. No way to make your own?

There are a ton of ways to build a geodesic dome, and most of them are even stronger than the hubs kit.  But almost all of them require a lot of specific calculations regarding lengths and angles, as well as the ability to either produce a hub yourself to get the correct angle, or cut your lumber in specific compound angles, and that just wasn't going to happen.  Domes can be built from stuff like PVC using PVC  hubs and all sorts of stuff.  When it came down to it, I wanted either metal or wood, and I wanted the hubs/connections to be as attractive as possible, and for this not require much effort to put together.  The combination of those things is why I went with the hubs kit I did.  

I found $600 hub kits that take 2x4s and can support real weight (like you can hang a hammock inside), plans online for buying metal conduit, flattening and gently bending the ends, then drilling holes through the flatted area and running a bolt through as a hub, large PVC rings with holes drilled to run additional pieces of PVC in held together with zip ties, there are all sorts of dome systems out there.    I'm a person who finds something I like, and then spends weeks agonizing over every other option before eventually coming back to my original one.  

It's hard to say with fluctuating prices these days, but buying hubs is probably the way to go. 2x4 pieces can often be warped but you don't know until you pull pieces from the strapped down pallet and take them home, so if you have a chance to get fully dried wood that would be my focus. I wonder if angle iron/metal pieces could also work? Not sure how they would attach at the hubs though. I visited Heartwater Farm years ago (they sold it since then) and their greenhouse was one, this link has some pics (click view details): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/life-off-grid-dome-house-greenhouse-tour-tickets-168459391575?aff=ebdsoporgprofile# including the greenhouse:

Mark Brunnr wrote:It's hard to say with fluctuating prices these days, but buying hubs is probably the way to go. 2x4 pieces can often be warped but you don't know until you pull pieces from the strapped down pallet and take them home, so if you have a chance to get fully dried wood that would be my focus. I wonder if angle iron/metal pieces could also work? Not sure how they would attach at the hubs though. I visited Heartwater Farm years ago (they sold it since then) and their greenhouse was one, this link has some pics (click view details): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/life-off-grid-dome-house-greenhouse-tour-tickets-168459391575?aff=ebdsoporgprofile# including the greenhouse:

There are definitely some higher cost greenhouse and even house kits.  It really just depends on how much you want to spend.  https://www.geodesicdomekits.net/shop

I love a fancy dome, but really only needed it for a trellis and more than anything as a proof of concept.  I've already broken one of my sticks by straightening up while climbing through a few inches too early.  I fully expect to need to replace the 1x2s at some point with 2x2s or very straight sticks if I can get enough of them, however with the cost of lumber and ease of building this, I'm perfectly happy to redo it when the time comes.  The hubs kit was super easy to build.  

I'm impressed with what you've done!

Rachel McCarty wrote:I'm impressed with what you've done!

Thanks!  We are pretty happy with the dome.  It was a hard sell with my husband but he seems to have really warmed up to it once he saw the vines growing on it.