Earth Protect Blog

Geodesic domes, other resilient designs are gaining new attention

By Christopher Flavelle

The New York Times

John duSaint, a retired software engineer, recently bought property near Bishop, Calif., in a rugged valley east of the Sierra Nevada. The area is at risk for wildfires, severe daytime heat and high winds — and also heavy winter snowfall.

But duSaint isn’t worried. He’s planning to live in a dome.

The 29-foot structure will be coated with aluminum shingles that reflect heat and are also fire-resistant. Because the dome has less surface area than a rectangular house, it’s easier to insulate against heat or cold. And it can withstand high winds and heavy snowpack.“The dome shell itself is basically impervious,” duSaint said.

As weather grows more extreme, geodesic domes and other resilient home designs are gaining new attention from more climate-conscious homebuyers — and the architects and builders who cater to them.

The trend could begin to dislodge the inertia that underlies America’s struggle to adapt to climate change: Technologies exist to protect homes against severe weather — but those innovations have been slow to seep into mainstream homebuilding, leaving Americans increasingly exposed to climate shocks, experts say.

The result isn’t just greater risk of death or injury, but also financial calamity, as homeowners struggle with declining property values, an inability to get insurance or the loss of what is often their most valuable asset. And the emotional and social toll of losing homes to disasters is only beginning to be understood.

Weather-related disasters pushed more than 3.3 million American adults out of their homes in 2022, census data shows. Of those, at least 1.2 million people were out of their homes for a month or longer; more than 500,000 of them never returned, fueling a growing diaspora of domestic climate refugees.

In the atrium of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, volunteers recently finished reassembling “Weatherbreak,” a geodesic dome built more than 70 years ago and briefly used as a home in the Hollywood Hills.

It was avant-garde at the time: roughly 1,000 aluminum struts bolted together into a hemisphere, 25 feet high and 50 feet wide, evoking an oversize metal igloo.

The structure has gained new relevance as the Earth warms.

“We started thinking about how our museum can respond to climate change,” said Abeer Saha, the curator who oversaw the dome’s reconstruction.

“Geodesic domes popped out as a way that the past can offer a solution for our housing crisis, in a way that hasn’t really been given enough attention.”

Domes are just one example of the innovation underway. Houses made from steel and concrete can be more resilient to heat, wildfire and storms. Even traditional wood-framed homes can be constructed in ways that greatly reduce the odds of severe damage from hurricanes or flooding.

But the costs of added resiliency can be about 10% higher than conventional construction. That premium, which often pays for itself through reduced repair costs after a disaster, nonetheless poses a problem: Most homebuyers don’t know enough about construction to demand tougher standards. Builders, in turn, are reluctant to add resilience, for fear that consumers won’t be willing to pay extra for features they don’t understand.

One way to bridge that gap would be to tighten building codes, which are set at the state and local level. But most places don’t use the latest code, if they have any mandatory building standards at all.

Some architects and designers are responding on their own to growing concerns about disasters.

On a piece of land that juts out in the Wareham River, near Cape Cod, Mass., Dana Levy is watching his new fortress of a house go up.

The structure will be built with insulated concrete forms, or ICF, creating walls that can withstand high winds and flying debris, and also maintain stable temperatures if the power goes out — which is unlikely to happen, thanks to the solar panels, backup batteries and emergency generator. The roof, windows and doors will be hurricane- resistant.

The whole point, according to Levy, is to ensure he and his wife won’t have to leave the next time a big storm hits.

Where wildfire risk is great, some architects are turning to steel. In Boulder, Renée del Gaudio designed a house that uses a steel structure and siding for what she calls an ignition-resistant shell. The decks are made from ironwood, a fire-resistant lumber. Beneath the decks and surrounding the house is a weed barrier topped by crushed rock to prevent the growth of plants that could fuel a fire. A 2,500-gallon cistern could supply water for hoses in case a fire gets too close.

Those features increased the construction costs as much as 10%, according to del Gaudio. That premium could be cut in half by using cheaper materials, like stucco, which would provide a similar degree of protection, she said.

But perhaps no type of resilient home design inspires devotion quite like geodesic domes. In 2005, Hurricane Rita devastated Pecan Island, a small community in southwest Louisiana, destroying most of the area’s few hundred houses.

Joel Veazey’s 2,300-square-foot dome was not one of them. He only lost a few shingles.

“People came to my house and apologized to me and said, ‘We made fun of you because of the way your house looks. We should never have done that. This place is still here when our homes are gone,’” said Veazey, a retired oil worker.