John duSaint, a retired software engineer, recently bought property near Bishop, California in a rugged valley east of the Sierra Nevada. The area is at risk of forest fires, intense daytime heat and strong winds – and also heavy snowfall in winter.
But Mr. duSaint is not worried. He plans to live in a dome.
The 29-foot structure will be clad with aluminum shingles that reflect heat and are also fire resistant. Because the dome has a smaller area than a rectangular house, it is easier to insulate against heat or cold. And it can withstand strong winds and heavy snowpack.
“The dome shell itself is inherently impervious,” said Mr. duSaint.
As weather becomes more extreme, geodesic domes and other resilient home designs are gaining renewed attention from more climate-conscious homebuyers and the architects and builders who cater to them.
The trend could begin to unravel the inertia that underlies America’s struggle to adapt to climate change: Technologies exist to protect homes from severe weather — but those innovations have been slow to penetrate mainstream housing, leaving most Americans are increasingly vulnerable to climate shocks, experts say.
weather the storm
In the atrium of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, volunteers recently completed the rebuilding of Weatherbreak, a geodesic dome built more than 70 years ago and briefly used as a home in the Hollywood Hills. It was avant-garde back then: About a thousand aluminum struts were bolted together to form a hemisphere, 25 feet high and 50 feet wide, reminiscent of an oversized metal igloo.
The structure has taken on new meaning as the earth has warmed.
“We started thinking about how our museum could respond to climate change,” said Abeer Saha, the curator who oversaw the dome’s reconstruction. “Geodesic domes have emerged as a way that history can provide a solution to our real estate crisis, in a way that hasn’t received enough attention before.”
Domes are just one example of the innovation that is underway. Steel and concrete homes can be more resilient to heat, wildfires, and storms. Even traditional wooden houses can be built in a way that greatly reduces the likelihood of severe damage from hurricanes or floods.
However, the cost of added resilience can be about 10 percent higher than traditional construction. But that premium, often recouped in reduced repair costs after a disaster, poses a problem: Most homebuyers don’t know enough about construction to demand stricter standards. In turn, builders are reluctant to add resilience because they fear consumers will not be willing to pay more for features they don’t understand.
One way to close this gap would be to tighten building codes, which are set at the state and local levels. But most places don’t use the latest regulations, if any mandatory building codes exist at all.
Some architects and designers are responding independently to growing concerns about disasters.
On a piece of land jutting into the Wareham River near Cape Cod, Mass., Dana Levy watches his new fort emerge from a house. The structure will be constructed of Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF), creating walls that can withstand high winds and flying debris, as well as maintaining stable temperatures even during a power outage – which is unlikely thanks to the solar panels, backup batteries, etc. backup generator. The roof, windows and doors will be hurricane proof.
According to Mr Levy, a 60-year-old retiree who has worked in the renewable energy sector, it’s about making sure he and his wife don’t have to leave the next time a big storm hits.
“There will be a lot of people pouring onto the streets looking for scarce government funds,” Levy said. His goal is to weather the storm “and actually invite my neighbors over.”
Mr. Levy’s new home was designed by Illya Azaroff, a New York architect who specializes in resilient designs and has projects in Hawaii, Florida and the Bahamas. Mr. Azaroff said using this type of concrete frame adds 10 to 12 percent to the cost of a home. To offset these extra costs, some of his clients, including Mr. Levy, choose to build their new homes smaller than planned – for example, sacrificing an extra bedroom in order to have a greater chance of surviving a disaster.
Building with steel
Where the risk of forest fires is high, some architects resort to steel. In Boulder, Colorado, Renée del Gaudio designed a home that uses steel construction and siding for what she calls a fireproof shell. The decks are made of ironwood, a fireproof wood. Below the decks and around the house is a weed barrier covered with gravel to prevent the growth of plants that could start a fire. A 2,500-gallon cistern could provide water for hoses should a fire get too close.
According to Ms. del Gaudio, these features increased construction costs by up to 10 percent. That premium could be halved by using cheaper materials like stucco, which would provide a similar level of protection, she said.
Mrs. del Gaudio had reason to use the best materials. She designed the house for her father.
But perhaps no type of resilient home design inspires as much devotion as geodesic domes. In 2005, Hurricane Rita devastated Pecan Island, a small community in southwest Louisiana, destroying most of the area’s few hundred homes.
Joel Veazey’s 2,300-square-foot dome was not one of them. He just lost a few shingles.
“People came to my house and apologized to me and said, ‘We made fun of you because your house looks like that.’ We should never have done that. “This place is still there even though our homes are gone,” said Mr. Veazey, a retired oil worker.
dr Max Bégué lost his home near New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. In 2008, he built and moved into a dome on the same property that has since weathered every storm, including Hurricane Ida.
Two properties give domes their resistance to wind. First, the domes are made up of many small triangles that can bear more load than other shapes. Second, the shape of the dome channels curves around them, depriving the wind of a flat surface on which to exert force.
“It doesn’t blink in the wind,” said Dr. Bégué, a racehorse vet. “It’s swaying a bit – more than I’d like. But I think that’s part of his strength.”
“Looking for something different”
Mr. Veazey and Dr. Bégué got their homes from Natural Spaces Domes, a Minnesota company whose demand has skyrocketed over the past two years, according to Dennis Odin Johnson, who owns the company with his wife Tessa Hill. He said he expects to sell 30 or 40 domes this year, up from 20 last year, and has had to double his workforce.
A typical dome is about 10 to 20 percent cheaper to build than a standard frame home, Mr Johnson said, with total construction costs ranging from $350,000 to $450,000 in rural areas and about 50 percent higher in and out of cities.
Most clients are not particularly wealthy, Mr Johnson said, but have two things in common: an awareness of climate threats and a spirit of adventure.
“They want something that will last,” he said. “But they’re looking for something else.”
One of Mr Johnson’s more recent clients is Katelyn Horowitz, a 34-year-old accounting consultant who is building a dome in Como, Colorado. She said she was excited by the ability to heat and cool the interior of the dome more efficiently than other structures. and the fact that they require less material than traditional houses.
“I like the offbeat,” Ms. Horowitz said, “but I love sustainability.”