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, extreme heat during the day and strong winds — as well as heavy snowfall in the winter.
But Mr. is not worried. duSaint. He plans to live in a dome.
The 29-foot structure will be clad in aluminum shingles that reflect heat, and are also fire resistant. Because a dome has a smaller surface 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 basically waterproof,” Mr. duSaint said.
As the weather worsens, geodesic domes and other resilient home designs are getting new attention from more climate-conscious home buyers, and the architects and builders who are responding to them.
The trend may begin to lift the inertia that underlies America’s struggle to adapt to climate change: Technologies exist to protect homes against severe weather — but those changes have been slow to make inroads. mainstream homebuilding, leaving most Americans increasingly exposed to climate shocks, experts say. .
Ride the storm
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: about a thousand aluminum struts were joined together in a hemisphere, 25 feet high and 50 feet wide, producing a gigantic metal igloo.
The structure takes on new relevance as the Earth warms.
“We started thinking about how our museum responds to climate change,” Abeer Saha, the curator in charge reconstruction of the dome, said. “Geodesic domes have emerged as a way that the past could offer a solution for our housing crisis, in a way that hasn’t really been given enough attention.”
Domes are just one example of innovation in progress. Houses made of steel and concrete can be more resilient to heat, fire and storms. Even traditional wooden houses can be built in those ways greatly reduce the possibilities of severe damage from storms or floods.
But the costs of additional stability can be about 10 percent higher than conventional construction. That premium, which often pays for itself through reduced repair costs after a disaster, however poses a problem: Most homebuyers don’t know enough about construction to demand more stringent that standard. Developers, in turn, are reluctant to add stability, fearing that consumers won’t be willing to pay extra for features they don’t understand.
One way to address that gap is to tighten building codes, which are set at the state and local level. But most places do not use the latest codeif they have any mandatory building standards.
Some architects and designers are actively responding to the growing concern about disasters.
On a piece of land jutting out into the Wareham River, near Cape Cod, Mass., Dana Levy watches her new fortress of a house go up. The structure will be built using insulated concrete forms, or ICF, which create walls that can withstand high winds and flying debris, and also maintain stable temperatures in the event of a power outage — which is unlikely, thanks to the solar panel, backup battery and emergency generator. The roof, windows, and doors will be hurricane-resistant.
The whole point, according to Mr. Levy, a 60-year-old retiree who worked in renewable energy, is to make sure he and his wife don’t have to leave the next big storm.
“Many people throw themselves on the street looking for scattered government resources,” said Mr. Levy. His purpose was to escape the storm, “and in fact to invite my neighbors.”
The new home of Mr. Levy was designed by Illya Azaroff, a New York architect who specializes in sustainable design, with projects in Hawaii, Florida and the Bahamas. Mr. Azaroff said that using that type of concrete frame adds 10 to 12 percent to the value of a house. To offset that extra cost, some of his clients, including Mr. Levy, decided to make their new home smaller than planned — sacrificing an extra bedroom, for example, for a better chance of surviving a disaster.
Building with steel
Where the risk of fire is great, some architects turn to steel. In Boulder, Colo., Renée del Gaudio designed a house which uses structural steel and siding for what he calls an ignition-resistant shell. The decks are made of ironwood, a fire-resistant wood. Under the decks and surrounding the house was a barrier of grass covered with crushed stone, to prevent the growth of vegetation that could ignite the fire. A 2,500-gallon cistern can provide water for the hoses in case the fire gets too close.
Those features increase construction costs by up to 10 percent, according to Ms. del Gaudio. That premium can be cut in half by using less expensive materials, such as stucco, that will provide a similar level of protection, he said.
Ms. del Gaudio has reason to use the best materials. He designed the house for his father.
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 several hundred homes in the area.
Joel Veazey’s 2,300-square-foot dome is not one of them. He only lost a few shingles.
“People came to my house and apologized to me and said: ‘We’re making fun of you because of the way your house looks. We shouldn’t have done that. This place is still here, when our homes are gone,’” said Mr. Veazey, a retired oil worker.
Dr. lost Max Bégué his home near New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. In 2008, he built and moved into a dome on the same property, which has survived every hurricane since, including Hurricane Ida.
Two features give domes their ability to withstand wind. First, domes are made up of many small triangles, which can carry more loads than other shapes. Second, the dome shape flows around it, removing air from the flat surface to exert force.
“It doesn’t blink in the wind,” said Dr. Bégué, a racehorse veterinarian. “It sways a little — more than I like. But I think that’s part of its strength.”
‘Looking for something different’
Mr. got Veazey and Dr. Bégué got their homes from Natural Spaces Domes, a Minnesota company that has seen an increase in demand 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 that he needs to double his staff.
A typical dome is about 10 to 20 percent less expensive to build than a typical log home, Mr. Johnson said, with total construction costs in the $350,000 to $450,000 range in rural areas. area, and about 50 percent higher in and around. cities.
Most customers are not particularly wealthy, Mr. Johnson said, but have two things in common: an awareness of climate threats, and a strong streak.
“They want something that will last,” he said. “But they’re looking for something else.”
One of Mr. Johnson’s newer clients is Katelyn Horowitz, a 34-year-old accounting consultant who is building a dome in Como, Colo. He said he was drawn to the dome’s ability to heat and cool inside more efficiently than other structures, and the fact that they require less material than traditional homes.
“I like something different,” said Ms. Horowitz, “but I like sustainable.”
