There is a Geodesic dome in Sussex, about 2 miles from me!

I must have driven past this countless times, but never really noticed it till now. After seeing this, I have started on a research project to find out what it is, and more importantly look into the planning application and construction.

And tthere was me thinking I will have to visit the USA to see a dome of similar size!

So far I have found out that is is the Fishersgate Community Center. It is currently abandoned because of an arson attack in 2005. Apparently 3 struts have been damaged and due to health & saftey it has been closed.

I have done some digging and possibly found a couple of people who can answer a few of my questions about this dome, and it's future.

Ideally I want to have a look around it inside, but this may not happen.

Further info.
More pics of the dome.
Location via local.live.com
Argus paper story
SEEOnline case study

Yet another model was built. Hopefully the next one I build will be 1:1 scale!

This is in UK railway HO scale, or 1:87 (approx). The reason for this is so I could use stock trees and foliage from model railway suppliers.

You will notice that I have designed and added some decking to the front of the building. This has also been added to the master white model.

See more of this one here.

A 3rd model was made, in the same scale as the wooden one. This time I wanted to experiment with materials. The roofing is shingle, and the walls are timber panels. I have also added solar panels to see how the effect the look of the building.

See more of this model here.

This model is made out of balsa wood and matchsticks. As it is to scale we can layout furniture to give us an idea of how it will look and feel full size.

I designed most of the dome in CorelDraw, printed out the sections I needed, stuck it to balsa sheeting and cut it all out. The dome is reinforced with matchsticks and glued with superglue (that stuff is great). The whole lot was then sprayed white.

All the furniture was designed in CorelDraw, printed on card and stuck again using superglue.

Clcik here to see more photos of it.

This is a small model made from cardboard. It was put together to get a 3d view of what the finished house could look like. It is not to scale and the geometric dome is incorrect.

Click here to see it.

Ordered some books to help with sussing out the planning permission process. As we are totally new to this game, some help is needed!

Today I got my information pack from Timberline Geodesics in the USA. Its very good and has given us loads of ideas for floor plans etc.

We have decided on the Birtch style design, and I am ordering floor plan blueprints.

On the way back from Las Vegas in 2006 I was reading Pupular Science on the plane. Whilst reading the mag I was watching An Inconvenient Truth, the film by Al Gore. In the back of the magazine I saw this ad...

I thought "How cool is that", came home and started on this project.