Build a Geodesic Greenhouse
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 08.28.07
Keep your plants in fighting shape, even after the first frost sets, with a geodesic-dome greenhouse of your very own. And raise a homegrown cantaloupe to Buckminster Fuller while you're at it.
Another first-prize winner from our TreeHugger/Popular Science/Instructables Go Green contest, our builders belong to Youth Exploring Science, a program that provides opportunities for underprivileged teens to learn vocational and life skills.
A quickie history lesson: R. Buckminster Fuller, who patented the geodesic structure, found it appealing because it was extremely strong for its weight and it enclosed the greatest volume for the least amount of surface area (and thus, materials); plus, its "omnitriangulated" surface made it an inherently stable structure that dampened extreme wind turbulence.
The Buckster hoped that it would be the House of the Future and address the post-war housing crisis, but his ideas never came to fruition, although geodesic shelters have been built all over the world in myriad climes.
Well, Greenhouse of the Future still has a nice ring to it. ::Instructables
