Camp Build

Building a 16×16 platform for the dome

June 30, 2026

The dome needs something flat and dry to sit on, so before any of the pipe-bending I had to build a deck.

The land is an hour north of Crivitz, about a 4-hour drive from home. I bought it to have a spot to be in nature, camp, and mess around building things, and the dome is going to be the permanent shelter up there. But the spot I picked for it is nowhere near level, so step one was a platform.

I went with a 16×16 square. Pressure-treated everything, sitting on concrete piers instead of a poured slab. Piers because it's easier, full stop — I'm not mixing bags of concrete or waiting on a truck to find its way an hour past Crivitz. You set the piers, shim them level, and build on top.

Flatbed truck delivering lumber to the wooded site — It starts with a pile of lumber dropped at the site.

Then layout. String lines and a tape to get the square actually square and mark where the piers land. This is the part where a second set of hands would've been nice. Holding the dumb end of a tape by yourself gets old.

String lines and batter boards marking the deck footprint — Squaring up the footprint before anything gets set.

Cleared site with piers set and a tent in the background — That's my tent back there. I camped on site the whole build.

Piers set, then the perimeter beams and the joists running across them.

Perimeter beams framed on the concrete piers

Floor joists spanning the pier foundation — Joists in. Carrying and squaring 16-foot boards by yourself is awkward, but you just move slow and it works.

Standing behind the completed joist frame

Decking goes fast once the frame underneath is right. That's the payoff for fussing over level piers for a day.

Decking boards going down with steps built

Finished deck with Abby the rat terrier in a blue coat — Abby, rat terrier and full-time site supervisor, signing off.

Five or six days, solo. Lumber ran about $1,500.

Finished deck with the dome base outline chalked on it — The outline chalked on the deck is the dome's footprint.

A 2V dome doesn't sit on a square. Its base is a many-sided ring, so there's some deck left over around the edges that I'll figure out later — bench, storage, wood pile, something. Next up is the actual dome: bending 3/4-inch conduit into struts and seeing if my math was right.

Next post: bending a 2V geodesic dome out of EMT conduit.