Roam home to a dome

Geodesic domes are by most demonstrative illustration of what Buckminster Fuller meant when he urged humanity to adopt design solutions that "do more with less". Domes optimize surface area-to-volume ratios which means that they can enclose the specific volumes with the least amount of materials. That fact was not lost of Bucky in his development of affordable, resource-efficient and structurally sound housing systems.

The U.S. armed forces and the National Science Foundation were also aware of the high performance characteristics of geodesic domes which is why they were employed in some of the world's harshest environments over the years. (GW)

Stateside Home Is Proposed for South Pole Dome

By Henry Fountain
New York Times
November 10, 2009

A geodesic dome that sheltered scientists and support workers at the South Pole for three decades is due to be demolished in the next few months, having outlived its usefulness at the bottom of the world.

But a small group of polar veterans is trying to preserve the dome, arguing it is a signature feature of the United States Antarctic program. They want the 55-foot-high aluminum structure taken apart the same way that Navy Seabees assembled it — bolt by bolt and panel by panel — for reassembly stateside.

“If you saw anything about the South Pole, that dome would always be the symbol that you saw,” said Billy-Ace Baker, a former Navy radio operator in Antarctica and a founder of the Old Antarctic Explorers Association, who is involved in the effort.

Lee Mattis, who as a young engineer working for a California company came up with a way to erect the structure and served as project engineer during its construction over two Antarctic summers, said the dome “was a big part of the N.S.F. effort down there.”

The National Science Foundation, or N.S.F., the federal agency that oversees polar programs, has agreed to disassemble the top three rings, or about 45 triangular panels, for eventual installation at a Seabee museum being built in Port Hueneme, Calif. The bulk of the dome, which has 904 panels and 1,448 struts in all, held together by about 60,000 bolts, would be cut apart.

Brian W. Stone, a deputy division director in the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, said the agency had been talking with the Seabees for two years about ways to preserve part of the dome. “The Seabees feel it has historical significance, as do we and others who have worked at the South Pole,” Mr. Stone said.

But as part of a long-term modernization plan at the site, the agency had to have the dome removed by next March, he said.

The windowless dome, which is about 165 feet in diameter, was the main structure at the site, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Inside it were modular buildings for the station’s residents — as many as 200 in summer, 50 or so through the harsh polar winter. It has been largely unused for the past few years, replaced by a two-story elevated building.

Mr. Mattis, who returned to the pole in 2005 to inspect the dome, estimated that disassembling the entire structure bolt by bolt and shipping it stateside would cost about $500,000 above the $150,000 the National Science Foundation has budgeted for the project.

Mr. Mattis said his group hoped to have demolition delayed for a year and to use the time to interest private groups or individuals in providing the additional money to bring the whole dome back, with the idea that museums or other institutions would be interested in displaying parts of it. “In that way, we’d preserve the memory of it in multiple locations,” he said.

But Mr. Stone said the agency had made no secret of the project’s timeline. “We’re sensitive to the fact that it’s been an iconic structure for a lot of people for a long time,” he said. “But we are somewhat bound by the logistics and the need to wrap this up.”