When? and how?
Richard Buckminster ”Bucky” Fuller, an American inventor, architect,
author, engineer, designer, and futurist, patented the geodesic dome in
the 1940s and made it popular. The geodesic dome’s design gives it some
very interesting properties. Since the structure approximates a sphere,
geodesic domes have very low surface-area-to-volume ratios (i.e., its
volume is relatively large compared to its surface area). Geodesic domes
enclose more volume (e.g., cubic centimetres
[cm3]) per unit of mass (e.g., grams [g]) of
the dome than any other structure made from straight pieces. They are
also the only known structure built that increases in strength as the
size of the building is increased. As you can see with the geodesic
dome, R. Buckminster Fuller was interested in ideas that maximized
efficiency in design by ”doing more with less.”