Greenhouse: Building a geodesic dome greenhouse, 1 by tropicalaria

tropicalaria wrote:
Well, I have some cutting to do. This is another one of those things that I've spent a lot of time considering without coming to a clear, obvious answer. Covering with a single sheet is not going to happen, because the size of the sheet would necessarily be enormous (better than 80' square) and the waste would be tremendous around the sides. If this were a shelter or something other than a greenhouse I might consider covering with five pieces around the dome (it is 5-way radially symmetric) and refolding wherever needed as I worked my way down the dome. Folding involves greater shading though, I need to the plastic tight for a number of reasons, including standing up to the wind and shedding snow and rain.

At this point I plan to cut the plastic into the shape of the individual icosahedral patches. If this were a sphere, that would require 20 patches to cover, but it's considerably less for my dome, and should guarantee that everything fits nicely on the structure.