Once we had decided to develop our own geodesic dome, the work began where we felt it had to: with the mathematics.
We wanted to understand the structure, not merely know how to build it. The first few months therefore took us through geometry, angles, lengths and the relationships between the triangles that would form our spherical shape. Step by step, we translated the mathematics into a three-dimensional CAD model that we could inspect, challenge and change ourselves.
We decided early on that our first model would be based on the Swedish rules then in force for a friggebod, a small ancillary building. They gave us clear outer limits: a building footprint of no more than 15 square metres and a height of no more than three metres. Similarly, the next model would fit within the Attefall rules of the time: up to 30 square metres and four metres high.
That may sound restrictive. For us, it became a design parameter.
With the diameter and height set, the entire geodesic geometry had to adapt. The lengths of the timber components, the angles where they meet and the triangles that form the shell all had to work as one system.
At the same time, we added a requirement of our own that would shape much of the design work: the inside of the dome had to be completely smooth.
When you sit inside a Scandinavian Dome, the timber structure should feel clean and continuous. If the meeting of different materials or geometries created a step, we wanted it on the outside, where the structure would be sealed and the transitions could be concealed.
That requirement took us deep into the details.
Our way of working together became quite clear. Rok developed the model, while I often acted as client and reviewer. My job was not only to ask whether the model worked, but to find where it did not. We zoomed in, turned it around, measured and tested the design until we thought we had found its next weakness.
One of the clearest examples came when we considered the model finished.
I zoomed in on one of the points where six triangles meet, forming a shape almost like a small rose. There I saw a step on the inside. It broke our principle of a perfectly clean interior surface.
When we measured it, the deviation was about 0.2 millimetres.
In the finished dome, no one would probably ever have noticed it.
But it was there.
So we reworked the design until even that deviation had moved to the outside.
That may sound excessive. But we were not simply chasing a visible fraction of a millimetre. Working at that level forced us to understand the model. Whenever we found something that was not entirely logical, we had to return to the geometry, understand the cause and solve the problem in the right place.
It gave us confidence that would matter when the model eventually left the screen and became timber.
Even small deviations can have consequences when repeated throughout a geodesic structure. A dome comprises hundreds of components and angles that must meet. If an angle is out by just a few tenths of a degree and that error recurs in many places, it can become significant when the shell closes.
This was also where our approach to quality began to take shape.
The ambition to create The Perfect Dome does not mean we believe there is an endpoint where everything is finished and nothing can be improved. Quite the opposite. It is a way of working: always looking for the next detail we can understand better, make more precisely or resolve more elegantly.
When we finally felt confident in the CAD model, the next step was to let the geometry meet reality.
We started small. Using scrap timber, we built the first physical models, about two metres in diameter—more like elaborate doghouses than finished domes. The aim was not to make something beautiful, but to check that what worked mathematically and digitally could also be built in timber.
It could.
With those first small models in front of us, we could take the next step.
Now it was time to build at full scale.
During the summer of 2026, we selected three pilot partners from almost 100 applications from Sweden and abroad. The pilot year has now begun with installations in Hemavan, Åre and Borgafjäll.
Under sommaren 2026 valde vi ut tre pilotkunder bland närmare 100 intresseanmälningar från Sverige och andra länder. Pilotåret har nu inletts med installationer i Hemavan, Åre och Borgafjäll.
Tillsammans med våra pilotkunder kommer vi under det kommande året att vidareutveckla varje del av Scandinavian Domes – från materialval och hantverk till logistik, installation och långsiktig hållbarhet – inför den bredare marknadslanseringen 2027.