Space enclosing structures in the shape of "geodesic" polyhedral domes employing a minimum of regular geometric shaped surfaces have become increasingly popular over the last twenty-five years. These structures have been used, amongst other things, for buildings of all sizes. The large volume-to-surface area ratio has made them especially appealing to those in the building trade as the cost of building materials increases.
One major problem encountered with adapting these structures as standardized housing and the like is that most building materials, such as plywood sheeting and prefabricated units such as windows or solar heating panels, are rectangular or square in shape. Most structures known teach the use of non-rectangular units such as triangles, pentagons and hexagons from which the structure is constructed. If a window is to be inserted, it must be specially shaped to one of these three designs or, alternatively, the dome unit must be adapted to accept a standard square or rectangular unit. Both of these procedures increase construction time and costs.
The applicant is familiar with a rhombicosadodecahedronal structure which can use square building units. However, the small number of surface units defining the polyhedral structure based on this shape, namely 62, restricts the size of same when using ordinary (4'.times.8') sized prefabricated structures.