R. Buckminster Fuller and Anne Hewlett Dome Home R. Buckminster Fuller and Anne Hewlett Dome Home The R. Buckminster Fuller and Anne Hewlett Dome Home, located at 407 S. Forest Ave. in Carbondale, Illinois, is a geodesic dome house which was the residence of Buckminster Fuller from 1960 to 1971. The house, inhabited by Fuller while he taught at Southern Illinois University, was the only geodesic dome Fuller lived in as well as the only property he ever owned. Fuller, a prolific architect and engineer, popularized the geodesic dome as a building design, and his house was one of the first geodesic dome residences to be constructed. The
Geodesic dome resists sun and weathering. Some form of internal flashing or caulking must be placed over the joints to prevent drafts. The 1963 Cinerama Dome was built from precast concrete hexagons and pentagons. Given the complicated geometry of the geodesic dome, dome builders rely on tables of strut lengths, or "chord factors". In "Geodesic Math and How to Use It", Hugh Kenner writes, "Tables of chord factors, containing as they do the essential design information for spherical systems, were for many years guarded like military secrets. As late as 1966, some 3"ν" icosa figures from "Popular Science Monthly" were all anyone