Domecile

The original design intent was to make the thing as cheaply as possible and to have it pack down as small as possible. We started with a V3 dome made from yardstick and simple hubs made from furniture pegs and plywood with a single bolt through the middle.

The first time we assembled it was in Golden Gate Park and we drew a lot of attention. Those are not our children! We quickly learned why yardsticks are so cheap. Even with a V3 frequency dome, we were snapping the things left and right simply putting it together. Obviously we had to find another solution.

Jeremy managed to find red oak flooring slats that were already cut into 2” strips and we remade the struts, reducing the dome frequency to 2V in the process. Because that required way fewer hubs, we were able to make 2 complete domes with all the parts we had. We sanded all the hubs and urethaned all the wood so it would last longer in the sun and rain.

This is a picture of how small the two domes pack down (there is some other stuff in the picture too). Each dome is about 9’ high and easily sleeps 6 people with plenty of space to spare. You can fit them in a standard hatchback as the longest strut piece is only 5’ long. All the hubs fit into 2 milk crates and the parachutes pack into a single trash bag.

We got very lucky in that our domes happened to be the perfect size to use a standard army airdrop parachute as a cover. The covering style has gone through a number of variations. Here we made panels from Reflectix to minimize the radiant heating inside the dome. It worked surprisingly well and made it bearable to be inside during the day in full sun. They’ve now been to 5 years of Burning Man and are holding up really well all things considered.

The domes have also been to 3 weddings as the popularity of camping weddings is on the rise. They’ve been used for both camping and cocktail space.

They glow very nicely at night as well!

We also took one down to Baja for an extremely windy surf trip!