as cool as it is, Iād say calling it a āhomeā is a bit of a stretchā¦ a cabin? sure. a shelter? certainly. but a home? No bathroom, no kitchen, no bathing facilities?
maybe Iām a Western culture snob.
Agreed. Also, with the bolts going all the way through, leakage might be a problem.
I agree. This is an extravagant tent, not a house.
An extravagant tent is not so different from a house. The point of the concept is to challenge traditional waste of space. Add a small compost toilet outside, and voila! A gas stove and filtered rain water- boom! A kitchen! My sister had a much smaller āhouseā made of wattle and daub, which was very liveable. Itās all about thinking (and living) outside the box.
This is a cabin, not a full house, but it does its job very well. And the design is stunning. Thereās nothing to it!
For what itās worth, I grew up in a dome not much bigger than this (26ā dia.). We eventually had running water, a bathroom and A/C.
Did anyone see a mention of fire testing that I missed? I know that small, self-supporting yurts built of foamboard insulation alone turned out to have unexpectedly severe fire problems, due to the structure acting a bit like a rocket stove. Itās kind of hard to imagine the interior plastic helping all that much, but Iād love to be wrong.
Given that it is just one room and is tiny, I would hope that it would be easy to get out in case of fire.
I also have a minor complaint with people who call bathrooms and kitchens a waste of space. It is cheating if you boast all about how tiny your house is when you have to have external facilities for everything but sleeping/office space. Itās like those gadgets that advertise how super tiny they are, but come with a power brick the size of an actual brick.
Iād call it a shed, but itās quite a nice shed. I really like the idea of dome houses in areas prone to tornadoes and hurricanes. Bigger than this though.
I think at 209 Sq. Feet and $2,100, people who want a place to eat and poo and clean themselves could build 2 more domes, one for a bathroom (and storage) and another for a kitchen (and storage). And at 627 sq feet and $6,300, itād be pretty damn cool and still small and, most important, it wouldnāt leave me house-poor.
This is a proof of concept more than a feasible project. I endorse that approach, but I still have to wonder how this structure is going to hold up to the scourge of all buildings brave enough to put something above ground, that is, the wind. No skeleton and bolts through plastic wonāt hold up for long. Nice for a summer maybe. You would not want to be asleep in there during a severe storm.
Sure itās a home.
Itās a geodesic dome. Isnāt leaking sort of a requirement?
How about you kids get off my lawn and go and read the experience-based thoughts of the guy who was most responsible for the popularity of domes 30-40 years ago?
http://www.shelterpub.com/_shelter/smart_but_not_wise.html
http://www.shelterpub.com/_shelter/domes_rectangles.html
http://www.shelterpub.com/_shelter/domebuilder's_blues.html
http://www.shelterpub.com/_shelter/refried_domes.html
You still have to own the land. Typically the land is about half the cost of a home, so youāre only saving a little under 50% to live like this.
Although this is a moot point since there is absolutely no way this house is going to pass a home inspection. Youāre going to have to set this up in someoneās back yard and call it a shed, or well outside of town and just middle finger anybody who mentions the phrase ābuilding codesā.
Land can be rented or thereās squatting. These plasti-domes are said to be easy to take apart and reassemble.
Windows?
Interesting. It also has the added bonus in that anyone can relieve the owner of all their worldly possessions with nothing more than a drywall saw.
Where I think the concept would play though, is instances where youād need cheap, quick shelter such as in response to natural disasters.
Foamboard is typically impregnated with a flame retardant, so it wonāt burst into flames when itās around a high heat source. Generally, it melts away from a fire or heat, which is kinda-sorta a safety feature, unless you happen to be standing under it and the liquid drops on you, in which itās really bad. It also gives off toxic fumes when it melts, so yeah, a fire is going to be a really bad time with one of these. Thereās also the issue of outgassing, which makes long-term use an issue.
The way to do it would be to drywall the interior, but youād probably need a frame to do that, and the price would go up and portability would be shot. And if price and portability isnāt an issue, youād be better off just doing a drywall interior/EPS foam core/steel-reinforced concrete exterior dome, which is going to cost ten times as much, but it would survive a hurricane and pass any building code requirements you threw at it.
