How to Build a RanDome Geodesic Emergency Shelter

The sooner an emergency shelter is erected, the sooner disaster victims can begin to recover.

Buckminster Fuller, developer of the geodesic dome, believed that the universe is the basis for successful design. Inventor and philanthropist Richard Fischbeck applied his strong working knowledge of Fuller's teachings to develop a new method for constructing geodesic dome shelters. "The RanDome construction strategy is intuitive," he said. "This building strategy needs no advanced educational degrees or construction experience. It transcends literacy, language and cultural barriers. Anyone can now build a sturdy, weatherproof and healthy shelter." Fischbeck's RanDome method overlaps circles somewhat randomly, eliminating the need to understand complicated mathematical calculations or to fix attention on placement of edges and corners.

Things You'll Need

• Sheet Material (preferably aluminum)
• Hand-operated rivet gun
• Hammer
• Scissors

Instructions

1. 

   Hurricane Katrina left thousands of New Orleans residents homeless in 2005.

   Flatten the sheet material as best as possible with a hammer or other heavy object. Aluminum is the best choice for material for its resistance to fire, water, UV rays, insects and deterioration. In an emergency situation however, you must search your surroundings to find any lightweight, flexible sheet materials. A variety of materials can be combined into one structure if necessary. Consider street signs, corrugated steel roof shingles, car upholstery, cardboard, plywood or plastic soda bottles.

2. 

   People who lost everything in the 2008 China earthquake truly understood the importance of basic necessities.

   Divide 360º by the number of building elements you have to determine the angle deficit needed. The RanDome method presumes a circle as its basic building block (or vertex element) but the shape is actually not as important as the angular deficit. If you have 100 circles to build with, for example, the angle deficit needed is roughly 3.6 degrees. Accuracy is not necessary in the RanDome method; the angle can be estimated and any shape vertex elements of roughly the same size can be used.

3. 

   Monsoon rains caused flooding that affected millions of Pakistanis in 2010.

   Draw the calculated angle from the center to the edge on each vertex element that you are using. Cut along either one of the angle lines.

4. 

   More one year later, survivors of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti still lived in makeshift shelters.

   Overlap the cut edge to align it with the second angle line and fasten firmly using the rivet gun to form an obtuse cone. The appropriate stiffness necessary for building material can often be acquired simply by coning it. If a rivet gun is not available, search your surroundings for glue, staples, nuts and bolts, chewing gum, and even tree sap. Your intuition and imagination will be your greatest asset until help arrives.

5. 

   An emergency shelter helped victims regain a sense of security after an earthquake and resulting tsunami hit Japan in 2011.

   Fasten one element to the next creating a dome from the top down. Obtuse cones are only slightly raised circles providing just enough curvature to form a bowl shape as one is fastened to another. The upper vertex elements of the dome should overlap the lower ones on the outside to make the structure leak-proof. The overlapping of the elements also makes up for any errors in calculation. You will easily sculpt a semi-sphere using only your vision to guide you. Leave an opening for the door.

Tips & Warnings

• RanDome is patented under a Creative Commons License meaning that anyone can copy, mimic and distribute the design for non-commercial purposes.

• Practice by making a small-scale model of a RanDome using flattened paper plates as your vertex elements.

• To make a complete sphere instead of the half-sphere described above, divide 720 degrees by the number of plates.

References

• Bangor Metro p.21; Richard Fischbeck: Following Bucky's Triangular Pathway; Leslie Bowman / Tori Brittman; March 2010
• The Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2008: Randome Shelter
• Synergetics Collaborative; January 25-26, 2003
• Creative Commons Patent
• Buckminster Fuller Institute; About Bucky
• Buckminster Fuller Institute; Design Science; by Amy Edmondson

Resources

• Buckminster Fuller Institute; General Systems Theory
• Neubert Net; Descartes Law of Closure Deficit
• FEMA; Louisiana Hurricane Katrina; News Releases
• OXFAM: Flooding in Pakistan
• Homeland Security Today; FEMA, Military Mobilize In Response To Tsunami; M. McCarter; March 2011
• U.S. Geological Survey; Haiti Dominates Earthquake Fatalities in 2010; Heidi Koontz / Clarice Ransom; January 2011