What’s cooking in the Sonostar R&D Lab?

What would your ideal job be?  For some people, it would be to go to work every day and do research and development on wild ideas that are somehow related to geodesic domes.  That pretty much describes Sonostar’s R & D Department. We love geodesic domes, and we’ve sold them all over the world to other people who share our same passion.  And just to be clear, we’re not trying to improve on the geodesic design – that was pretty much perfected by the Greeks some 2300 years ago. We’ve been blown away by some of the creative ways these domes have been used for all kinds of purposes.  In future weeks, we’re going to throw open the doors of our R&D lab, and share some of the ideas we’re working on. We’re hoping to make it interactive, too, so if you’re a visionary or a closet inventor, bring your imagination with you as we look into some of the ways we can modify, add on, or just look differently at these amazing architectural designs we call geodesic domes.

As a teaser, here are a few of the topics we already plan to cover.  But don’t be surprised if new ones come up as we bounce ideas off each other.  We’d love to hear your comments or see pictures of things you’ve worked on.  

• What about all that space up above in a large dome?  Are we restricted to just using the ground floor? Is there any way to efficiently use the geodesic structure to take advantage of that upper space?
• Bubble domes are nice, but aren’t there some alternatives to a transparent cover?
• Sonostar has 4-star, 5-star, and 6-star hubs.  Has anyone thought of making a 3-star hub? Why?
• It would sure be nice to have some shelves that attach to the side of the bubble dome greenhouse.  Is anyone working on that?
• Geodesic domes are sections of spheres.  Is there any way to make a geodesic sphere stand on its own?  It could make a great playhouse.
• A lot of our sales go to places that are off-grid.  How about an integrated solar power system? What would the requirements be?  Do geodesic domes have any advantage there?

We want to hear your thoughts. Feel free to comment below.