Here is the tale of our geodesic dome pool house.
I based the dome on the Burning Man geodesic domes featured on Desert Domes's website.
My plan (?) was to build about an 17 foot dome to enclose our 10 foot pool and leave some sunbathing area.
then we decided to get a bigger pool. It's 15 foot by 4 foot.
Now I had to resize the dome. I went with an 18 1/2 foot diameter.
I lucked into a bunch of 12 foot 2x4 for $2.56 each. I bought 35 of them. I trimmed one end at 17 degrees (please note that I got the angles wrong, they should have been 16 and 18 degrees, I used 17 to simplify, but it would have been better to use the correct angles)
Then made 2 cuts, for a 5.83 inch (5 ft 9 7/8) (inside angle to inside) and a 5.1555 inch (5 ft 1 1/8) peice. The left over piece were used for the stub wall.
The bases of the 10 stub sections are pressure treated 4x4. They cost almost the same as all the 2x4s! (price list below)
I originally drilled holes in the ends of all the pieces to wire them together as I constructed. (ended up not doing it that way, used a piece of bungee cord instead)
I built about 2/3 of the first row and tripped over an end peice and pulled it down.
Started over, got the first row done, then the crown pieces (second row), I call them that because that's what it looks like, a crown!
Lo and behold, the points of the crown are too far apart for the outsides of the top pentagon.
Seems that since the connecting corners of the 5 side pents form a circle (sort of), if the bases are too close in (smaller diameter), the tops are farther out, and the converse is true. So I needed to move the stubs out to bring the upper points in. Taking it down only took 45 minutes.
Digging took another day. Did I mention the ground is sloped? No?. The ground is slopped. The far side of the dome is at ground level, the near side is over a foot down (the top of the stub is at ground level!)
Assembled dome. (taking pictures as I go)
That was easy!
Here are some pictures of the assembly. Afterwards, I'll show you some detail pictures, and some in the pool pixs.
Lessons learned: install vents! The thermometer only goes to 125, and it pegs. As in it wants to wrap itself around the stop.
A low vent on the cool side (under a willow tree on the north) and a high vent on the south side will allow the hot air to exit and cool air to enter.

	From deck edge	From center of deck	From arbor
Stub wall done, ground leveled.
2 triangles of first pent and one `tweener (hex-ish triangle)
Bottom 3 of first pent done, along with both 1tweeneres.
2 pents done, starting third.
3 pents done.
Bottom course completed, again!
First crown point
Second course done, top pent sides in
Doing the top pent insides
Shell done!
All the green paint used up.
And the pink.
Entry way cut.
Plastic started.
Plastic done! Rough framed entryway.
Inserted pool. Now for pictures from inside.
Started filling pool.

Here are the promised detail pictures.

	In this picture you can see a piece of wood with a screw sticking out the end used as a brace to hold the triangle up so I can screw the bottoms in.
	Here's how the bungee cord holds it together while I work. With 2 people it would go a whol;e lot faster, and with a bunch it would  be done in a hour or so. As it was, I took 2 days. I had to keep stopping to wipe sweat from my eyes and glasses!
	Here's looking down at the joint showing the screws.
	Here's one of the 26 circular plywood joints. I did finally cut some thin (1 1/2 inch wide) strips of plywood to stack outside to keep the 2x4 from sliding into the center.
	Here's how to balance 4 boards while climbing a ladder. 2 long, one short, and the bracing board. The other ends are tied to the joints.
	And it's up! One pent completed! If you look close at the right side, you can see that I'm getting ready to raise the next crown point.

Price list:
1 Pool $299
1 solar pool cover $25
35 2x4x12ft $90
5 4x4x12ft $87
3 6mil plastic $39
21yards vinyl $33
2 box screws $17
scraps
total $291 for the dome,
$590 total