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Spirit of Ma'at: "Living
Off the Grid" — Vol 2 April 2002
Dome Homes and
Communities
Moving Beyond the Box
by Celeste Adams
The photo is from
WorldFlower Garden Domes
Thomas
Edward Lawrence wrote, "All men
dream, but not equally. Those who
dream by night in the dusty recesses
of their minds, wake in the day
[believing] that it was vanity: but
the dreamers of the day are
dangerous men, for they may act on
their dreams with open eyes, to make
them possible."
Buckminster
Fuller was a dreamer of the day.
Fuller had the
dream of providing a solution to the
world's housing crisis. And against
all odds, he ventured forth in the
late 1940s to design the geodesic
dome.
Since then,
there have been many variations on
the dome structure. Besides the
geodesic dome, there are domes made
of foam, monolithic domes, seadomes,
and deep-ocean domes. Dome villages,
like the Dome Project for the
Homeless in Los Angeles, have
sprouted up around the world, and
there are plans for floating ocean
communities made of seadomes, and
deep-ocean domes — all part of the
Celestopea Project.
Life in a dome
When I asked
several dome dwellers why they liked
living in a dome structure, they
explained that they felt a kind of
freedom that they couldn't find in a
box-shaped house. They also spoke of
feeling a greater sense of limitless
possibility in their live, and a
stronger connection to their
creativity.
Larry
Knackstedt, General Manager of
Geodesic Domes and Homes,[1] is
currently working with people who
are building dome residences in
countries like Haiti, Nicaragua,
Honduras, and the Philippines. He
himself has lived in a dome for 18
years and is used to the expansive
sense of space there. He says that
he feels claustrophobic in box
houses with low ceilings. Best of
all, his living room has so many
glass windows and skylights that he
feels like he's living in nature,
and not separated from the natural
beauty of the land.
David South,
Jr., VP of Monolithic Dome
Institute,[2] said that he grew up
in both kinds of houses, but
appreciates the sense of security
that he feels living in a dome. As a
child, he lived in a "box" house and
could hear the house shake whenever
there was a storm. But as an adult,
when he lived in a dome, storms
could be blowing 100 miles an hour,
and he often would not notice.
South
explained that his father once heard
Buckminster Fuller speak, and that's
what started him on building domes.
The popularity
of dome structures has increased
over the years. Hits on Monolithic
Dome Institute's website have jumped
from 1.5 million in January 2001 to
over 3 million hits in January 2002.
South notes that all kinds of people
are building dome residences, from
young people to retired couples, and
they also are being built to
function as schools, libraries,
gymnasiums, and community centers.
Practical
features of dome structures
Efficient use
of energy and materials
A structure
that is spherical uses the least
amount of energy and materials. This
type of structure conserves energy
for heating and cooling because
there is one-third less surface area
in the walls and ceilings, as
compared to square-shaped houses.
Also, less heat is lost because the
foundation of a dome house has a
smaller perimeter than box-style
houses.
Because of the
spherical shape of the dome, air
circulates naturally inside and this
adds to energy efficiency.
The enduring
nature of the geodesic dome
The geodesic
dome is able to withstand a great
deal of stress because all points of
the structure share stress equally.
When interconnected triangles are
set in a spherical shape, the
structure is inherently stable. Dome
structures are not affected by the
elements and hold up under the
pressure of high winds and heavy
rains, snowstorms, and earthquakes.
In Antarctica,
geodesic domes have been used for
radar towers, and they have been
able to withstand winds of 200 mph
for over 25 years. David South
commented, "There's a tremendous
amount of safety and longevity in
dome structures, and they will last
for centuries and not just a couple
of decades."
The cost of
building dome structures
Since geodesic
domes can be built in all different
ways, the exact cost will vary from
structure to structure. The
variables included different
fixtures and finishes, and there
also are different types of
foundations — a concrete slab is
less expensive than a full basement.
Timberline is
a company that sells geodesic domes,
and they estimate that domes cost
from 10 to 15 percent less than a
comparable box-type house.
Timberline also notes that over 90
percent of their customers erect the
dome shell themselves, which saves
additional money.
Customers who
do their own work and carefully
choose materials are able to build
domes for $60,000. Others spend as
much as several hundred thousand
dollars. The largest standard dome
that Timberline sells is a 45-foot
diameter, 5/8 sphere, and this can
be assembled by three people in five
days.
Our contact at
Geodesic Domes and Homes explained,
"We normally expect the cost to be
between thirty-five and forty-eight
dollars per square foot. This is
dependent upon many things, such as
steepness of the lot, whether it is
owner-built, or contractor-built,
and so on. And it can vary
tremendously from area to area. For
instance, towns and/or cities that
are highly unionized reflect
considerably higher construction
costs than more rural or remote
areas.
In short,
geodesic domes can cost less than or
the same as conventional
construction. But regardless of how
much you spend on your dome, you
must realize you are ending up with
a far superior product compared to
conventional construction. It is
stronger, more energy efficient, and
more aesthetically pleasing than any
conventionally built home."[3]
David South
Jr. notes that domes are cost
effective, energy efficient, and
very strong. "They are increasingly
popular as schools and gymnasiums,
because they provide tornado shelter
for the students and the community.
The school is low maintenance and
has excellent energy savings that
quite literally pay for the building
itself."
Dome shell
kits
There are many
companies that sell dome-shell kits,
including Monolithic Dome Institute
and Geodesic Domes and Homes (both
located in Texas). These kits come
with a blueprint for each specific
design. Floor plans are created by
licensed architects and structural
engineers.
Also included
are dome extensions, triangular
skylights, cupola kits, and other
specialized dome hardware. To save
money, most people usually buy items
locally, including roofing material,
insulation, lumber for the interior,
electrical, plumbing, doors,
finishes, and fixtures. This saves
on shipping costs.
Additional
rooms can be added to the main
floors by extending outwards from
the dome. Timberline offers
extension kits to adjoin domes, and
to build entryways, solariums, and
covered porches.
Other
advantages of dome homes include the
freedom of creating almost any kind
of interior floor plan, cathedral
ceilings, and the amplification of
light. It is often brighter inside a
dome, even without interior lights,
than it might be outside. There is
also an even distribution of sound
and heat inside the dome.
Foam domes
Polyurethane
foam is integral to dome
construction kits supplied by
Monolithic Dome Institute. David
South started using foam in the
early '70s, and once was the largest
foam applicator west of the
Mississippi.
To work with
foam, first you inflate a balloon
and spray polyurethane foam on the
exterior. Then you attach steel, and
spray concrete on the interior
surface.
Because the
polyurethane foam is on the outside,
it isolates the concrete on the
inside from thermal changes. The
concrete absorbs enormous amounts of
heat from inside the building and
operates like a battery for heat.
The polyurethane foam is its
protection. On warm days, it absorbs
heat from the room. At night, when
it cools off, it gives the heat back
into the room. That's the key to
saving money and this is the beauty
of foam-dome technology.
Monolithic
Dome Institute offers workshops in
Italy, Texas, four or five times a
year, at $750 for a week of
training. David South considers this
a bargain because people get to do
real, hands-on construction.
Dome Village
for the Homeless
In 1993, Ted
Hayes, an activist for the homeless,
first founded Dome Village in Los
Angeles. He set up over 20
omnisphere domes to create housing
and support for 18 to 24 individuals
and their families.
An innovative
solution to homelessness, Dome
Village is a project of Justiceville
/ Homeless, USA. They offer a
structural alternative for homeless
people who are unable or unwilling
to live in traditional shelters.
"The domes are used as a stabilizing
tool to provide affordable
transitional housing which is
nonthreatening to the chronic
homeless person and to the
neighborhood. We try always to
create a positive and innovative
approach to housing homeless people.
We try to achieve the goals of
alleviating homelessness and
reducing unsightly encampments in
our city."[4]
Things of
beauty
The
architectural structure of Dome
Village is a powerful visual that
forces the general public and
government to acknowledge that
housing the homeless can and should
be done. The domes stand as a symbol
of innovative solutions to a
long-term housing problem that
exists across the nation. In
contrast to the surrounding areas of
downtown Los Angeles, Hayes
considers the domes "things of
beauty."
"Currently we
live in over twenty domes. Eight are
for community use and include an
office, kitchen, community room,
separate women's and men's bath
facilities, laundry, and a gym. The
remaining domes are residential
domes, partitioned in half. They
provide private living space for two
individuals per dome."[5]
The goal of
Dome Village is to help the homeless
learn skills and self-esteem so that
they can become productive citizens
in society and transition into
permanent living situations. Dome
Village also hopes to establish dome
villages in needed areas around the
country.
Permanent
eradication of homelessness
The Dome
Village is "a dynamic system that
delights in creating and providing
fresh approaches to solving homeless
issues." Hayes believes that it is
the most innovative approach to
homelessness in the United States.
"When perfected, it will stimulate
further growth and development of
other creative concepts to eradicate
homelessness, and not further
industrialize it."[6]
Seadomes and
Deep-Ocean Domes
Dream Homes of
Celestopea
Recently, I
spoke to Jesse Love, one of the
founders of the Celestopea Project.
Celestopea is "the planned
ecological colonization of the
earth's oceans through a series of
self-sufficient, semi-autonomous
floating communities, located in
international waters and
incorporating innovative new
technologies, industries, and social
organizations."
Celestopea was
conceived in 1973 as the Atlantis
Project. Over the years, there have
been a number of new ideas that have
carried this project forward, but it
wasn't until 1996 that Love began to
share this dream with others, adding
many new elements to it.
"The
Celestopea Project," Love said, "is
quite different in almost every
aspect from the original idea."
Love explained
that if the Celestopea Project
planned to build floating cities
using conventional techniques, it
would be cost prohibitive.
Therefore, they have chosen to
employ a new technology to create
dome structures that will house the
Celestopeans. The architectural
designs are a compilation of the
work of many people, including
architects and naval engineers.
An 11-dome
community in a Costa Rica Bay
"Our first
goal," Love said, "once we get
approval from the government of
Costa Rica, is to build a permanent
11-dome community. It will be in a
protected bay, and would contain
seven family units. We're hoping to
begin that next year."
In the second
phase, they will build communities
on seamounts. "There's a place off
Costa Rica that we're negotiating
rights to," Love said. "Unlike the
11-dome one, it will be a totally
autonomous community."
Seadomes
"The proposed
seadomes will be very long-term
structures," Love said. "They are
not like anything else you've ever
seen. Since they will be subjected
to the unforgiving marine
environment, they must not only be
uniquely resistant to corrosive
elements, but also must be
inherently stronger than similar,
land-based structures. The challenge
becomes to create floating homes
that meet high structural
engineering requirements while
maintaining graceful and
aesthetically pleasing designs."
Love said that
he preferred curved structures to
homes with angles. "There are a lot
of reasons that we're building
smooth monolithic domes rather than
geodesic domes. You can build it in
a semi-dome shape, which is easy to
do in a monolithic format but not
easy to do in a geodesic format."
Floating
seadomes made of ferro-cement
Construction
of the seadomes will begin in late
2002 and they will be made of ferro-cement.
It is much stronger than reinforced
concrete, which can come apart over
the years. "If you look at bridges
that go across salt-water
estuaries," Love explained, "they're
falling to pieces because the
concrete falls apart. In time, these
bridges have to be torn down. This
doesn't happen with ferro-cement."
Ferro-cement
(also spelled "ferrocement") is a
mixture of wire, rebar, and
concrete. These properties help it
become a homogenous piece of
material. Its strength is close to
steel, but unlike steel it doesn't
rot or corrode. While other
materials get weaker with age, ferro-cement
actually gets stronger.
Jesse and
Sumara Love write that ferro-cement
has been in use for over 100 years.
"Ships built of cement during the
first decades of the twentieth
century are still floating, while
many others have rusted through and
sunk to the bottom."
Deep-ocean
domes
The second
phase of construction will consist
of building deep-ocean domes on
seamounts, 130 miles off the shore
of Costa Rica. These are spheres,
half below water and half above,
that are 100 feet in diameter.
The Celestopea
Project, according to the website,
"involves the creation of a
worldwide series of very prosperous,
autonomous, self-sustaining,
floating ocean cities with
populations between 5,000 and 10,000
people. Each city is actualized with
innovative technologies that create
buildings and even islands from the
minerals held in solution in
seawater. This same technology,
along with a worldwide construction
of Ocean Thermal Energy Converters
(OTECs), will also add new land mass
to burgeoning population coastal
areas, as well as provide abundant
supplies of high protein food, pure
water, and renewable, pollution-free
energy to raise the quality of life
throughout the world"[7] (for more
on OTEC, see OTEC sidebar in heat
pump article).
In the '70s,
Professor Wolf Hibertz at the
University of Texas pioneered the
process that Celestopea will be
using. "We're going to build homes
in the same way that a shellfish
builds its shell," Love explained,
"by using minerals that are
dissolved in sea water. We can mold
them into any form or shape that we
want. The growth process of calcium
carbonate is such that it is about
half the weight of steel and often
many times stronger than steel."
Enhancing the
biosphere of the earth
A big portion
of the motivation behind this
project is to enhance the biosphere
of the earth as well as the
ecosystem.
Perhaps the
most ambitious and world changing
undertaking of the Celestopea
Project is its utilization of OTECs
(Ocean Thermal Energy Converters (to
understand the principle involved,
please refer to our article on Heat
Pumps). According to the Celestopea
website, "OTECs take advantage of
the perpetual difference between the
temperature at the surface of the
tropical oceans and the cooler
temperature 3,000 to 4,000 feet
below the surface. This temperature
variation is used to generate
totally pollution free electricity
from an inexhaustible renewable
source. . . . Only a small amount of
energy is required to pump large
volumes of water 4,000 vertical feet
up from the ocean depths.
. . .The
nutrient rich water Celestopean
OTECs pull up from the ocean's
depths will instigate an explosion
of new life in the oceans. The
resulting micro algae and
phytoplankton growth, continually
fed by new nutrient rich water
pulled up by the OTECs will become
the base of a tremendous increase in
many types of fish and higher forms
of marine life."[8]
As we bring up
the nutrient rich water from below,"
Love said, "we are reseeding water
with life and will have a Garden of
Eden in the form of sea life."
A floating
city of dreams
"Just as 'the
people' built the great pyramids of
Egypt which, centuries later, are
still one of the absolute wonders of
the world, let 'the people' build
Celestopea. Let us bring our
knowledge, talents and abilities
together to build our 'City of
Dreams' and, as prophesy decrees,
let us be the heralds of peace,
prosperity, and unity of all the
people upon the Earth."[9]
Dream the
Future
In reading
about the life of Buckminster Fuller
and his vision of providing homes
for everyone in the world; in
listening to the passion of Ted
Hayes who wants to stamp out
homelessness with domed communities;
in talking to Jesse Love about his
vision of a domed ocean-community
utopia called Celestopea: We are
reminded that dreams can be realized
and they can reshape the world we
live in.
We can break
out of the box of conventional
thinking, reflected in the little
boxes that most of us call home, and
nurture the visionary powers of our
mind in dwellings that encourage
expansiveness and the pursuit of our
highest dreams and aspirations. It
is then, I feel, that we will begin
to develop strategies that will move
this planet beyond dog-eat-dog
struggles for survival, toward a
world focused on creating peace and
harmony for all.
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