Several people have mentioned that these houses are “earth-” or “eco-” friendly. What, specifically, would make a round house more eco-friendly than a square one?
That a geodesic home is more storm-safe than a regular one does make sense, though. I’d never thought about that before. I wonder whether a mobile-home could be built geodesically and be similarly safe?
Less materials used for a similar volume. Though, it may not be as usable volume.
While mobile homes are not really that ‘mobile’, a geo dome is less so. And round. And built on site. Not easy to haul down the highway. I suppose you could haul one in pieces, but there really is no point. From what I have seen geodomes are panelized for quick construction anyway.
The whole thing revolves around the shape of the structure. A round (domed) structure is less likely to have weak spots. And will be a lot more aerodynamic than a box.
A mobile home built with geodesic dome construction techniques would no longer be a mobile home. It’d be a submarine on wheels. 
Thanks, enipla. That makes sense. However, I think you’d still have to weigh the added costs/energy to heat it (if it’s true that these houses are hard to heat) against the perceived savings in materials. Plus, if there is a lot of wasted space inside (and I’ve never been inside one to know), you’d need to build a bigger geodesic house to have the same usable space as a smaller standard-built house. Plus, if it’s true (as one poster said) that the style of a geodesic house leaves a lot of unusable ‘scraps’ behind, then that would be an issue too. A standard house might leave a large volume of ‘leftovers’ behind, but they might be usable in future buildings, whereas a geodesic house may leave behind a smaller amount of tiny scraps that can’t be used at all…
I find this an interesting question. Back in the early '70s, my family built our own home. My folks never considered a geodesic dome (because they don’t like the looks), but they did try to build a standard house in the most efficient fashion, since we were building it (all except the foundation, which we weren’t allowed to do ourselves due to building restrictions). We ended up with a small (<1000 Sq. ft.), well insulated, 3 bedroom, 1 bath rancher. If they had it to do over, they’d have put in a second bathroom, but it was quite a comfortable house overall. Cheap to build and very cheap and easy to heat and cool. We had quite a bit of building material leftover, but it was nearly all in large enough chunks to be reused in other projects later on (the place was 9 acres and we eventually had several outbuilding) – so while there was some ‘waste’ in building the house, very little was truly wasted.
Too bad. What a marketing scheme – “hurricane-proof” trailers!
When I was looking into the idea of building one I read several times that they are cheaper to heat and cool. There is less outside surface area than on a rectangle shaped house.