Hello Herr Von Slatt,
i'm sure you have looked into dome construction, and gone to the Desert Domes website.
I have built a few domes, and regularly use one for camping in long-term....usually two-week+ periods. I fit my chuck wagon under it, along with a table for eight (8) and extra seats. The one I speak of was made of galvy steel tubing orginally manufactured for sprinkler systems, but was obtained from a clothing store in Harvard Square, Cambridge MA where it was used to make clothing racks.....alas, I missed all of the KeeKlamp fittings it had been assembled with! Too Late!

The dome itself is a 2-freq structure, 10 feet high, 20 feet across...that seemed a good compromise between the lengths available from the salvaged pieces, and a usable/transportable project.....it's quite heavy with some 67 pieces, two being spares.
Quite comfortable, but it does take about 2 1/2 hours to set up in bad conditions....including covering, staking down, asembling the kitchen etc. I build it right around the chuck wagon, which is convenient for standing on to assemble the top few pieces.

I am in the process (nearly complete) of collecting sufficient metal tubing for another dome. While I use the large dome for a kitchen/livingroom/entertaining area, I want a second dome for a bedroom/private area. I had been sleeping in the back of my capped pickup truck; while cozy, it's cramped, and not very inducive to l'amour. Well, it IS once I talk 'em into it....heh. Just some things should not/could not be attemped due to lack of ceiling space.

ANYway, the new dome will be the basic 18+/- footer, using lengths scrounged from the local scrap recycling piles and dumpsters. BTW, sorry to hear about your town prohibiting salvaging same.

The process is relatively simple once you have determined the size and frequency of dome: cut to length, flatten ends, drill, deburr and paint. Then it's just a matter of assembling on-site.

I caution against overweening ambition in building a large dome. As I take mine camping, a friend of mine developed dome envy the first time he saw it, and proceeded to make a larger dome the next year. Fine 'n dandy.
The following year he had the opportunity to garner a large quantity of metric conduit (unused from a power plant job, it was shipped with a Japanese piece of equipment, but unusable due to US code/sizes).
He proceeded to make a massive 35-foot diameter 3-freq dome that took all of three days to assemble....all the while his girlfriend had to sleep in his truck's cab. You can guess who was in the doghouse for the next week! The worst part of assembly was lashing together borrowed ladders to assemble the top sections, some 18 feet above the ground.
It was also abortively covered in the white plastic shrink-wrap that's used for boats, but the dragon torch used mostly melted rather than shrinking.
Insert dollar$ for aluminized tarps.....I hope he's learned his lesson!

So, if you want to speak with someone local to the Boston area that has done domes, give me a call/email at your convenience.
I've also done timber framing, and that experience is likewise available.
Should you wish to try living in a dome, you might borrow mine and give it a shot. Interesting use of space!

TTFN,
Ryan Grimm aka Sgt. Mustache

That, my friends, is satire the way it's meant to be done.