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The best looking technique I've seen is by this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U32KTMtp5kU

He sells kits and plans I think: https://www.geo-dome.co.uk/article.asp?uname=geo_polydome

The reason I like the look of it is that he starts off by planing all the wood to 10 degrees (from memory... double check), that's a clever technique because it means you don't need to worry about one of the angles. Also you are making the triangles, and screwing them together side to side, so there are no hubs. Hubs are tricky to make, the angles are complicated, and they need to be very strong. I also like this greenhouse dome because it's so nicely covered, again because you're making the triangles.

The other technique I recommend is steel tubes, crushed and bent slightly at the ends, with a hole drilled through... like this: https://www.desertdomes.com/tips.html

These are really strong, use minimal nuts and bolts, but are a bit tricky to cover neatly.

There are dome calculators online, I tend you use this Reverse Calculator, because I'm more concerned with the length of the struts than the radius of the dome.

https://www.desertdomes.com/revcalc.html

One of the tricky things is minimising wastage, so ideally your various strut lengths should add up to just under your raw material length... or certain combinations of strut lengths.

Domes come in all different frequencies, higher frequency = more triangles = smaller triangles = more struts = more different lengths = harder to make

1d (the d is the frequency) domes are easy to build, all the struts are the same length, and all the hubs are the same... 2d domes are harder, 2 different strut lengths, 2 different hubs 3d+ domes get harder and harder to build

I'd stick to a 1d or 2d dome first, make some matchstick ones, get you head around how they work, then build a big one.

Hope that helps

Answer from Matt Terry