View a slideshow of the building process

Monolithic Dome

Welcome to the new page on my website. Many people have asked why I have not been playing out much lately, and here you have the main reason: I have been under construction with my MONOLITHIC DOME (not Geodesic!) since Spring of 2003, and while it is not complete, it is quite liveable. Throughout the process, I have continually questioned my sanity, but now that I actually reside in the dome, I absolutely love it! As my dear departed father was so fond of saying, "You don't have to be crazy - but it helps!"

What prompted me to undertake such a project? Several things combined and pointed the way. In 1998, I nearly lost a house to three tornados that ripped through East Nashville, Tennessee. Fortunately, I had just moved back to the upstate New York area, and was out of harm's way. I subsequently purchased a semi-Adirondack styled cabin/lodge fixer-upper in the Catskills, and worked on it for four years. During that time, in the Spring of 2001, a forest fire in the Catskill National Forest came very close to my newly-renovated lodge, and burned like a volcano for three days in sight of my back yard; one shift in the wind and I would have lost everything.

I had had enough, and decided to research other structures. I had a fair amount of restoration experience, fixing up houses in return for rent, and actually restored and sold two of them, and felt confident I could do this. For months, I crammed as much as I could, purchasing books on anything alternative, but nothing clicked. I had heard of cordwood, straw bale, rammed earth, earthships, geodesic domes, sandbag structures and yurts; they all had their weaknesses in light of what I had been through. Then I happened upon the Monolithic website, and I knew instantly that this was it - the perfect combination of all the elements of all building styles - it was tornado-proof, fire-proof, earthquake resistant, heat and cooling efficient, environmentally sound, low maintenance, would outlast many generations, and could withstand almost anything short of impact by another planet. It was based on the technology of some of the oldest structures on earth, the curved shape, which has survived for millenia, and combined with modern technology, made for a superb dwelling and aesthecially pleasing structure. I sold my lodge to raise the money and moved into a funky trailer on the road to the dome site.

Being an adventurous and creative person, I set to work designing my dome with the help of several books of floor plans from Monolithic Dome Institute and American Ingenuity (Geodesic domes). I then went on the Monolithic website and began to make a pest of myself, calling everyone on the builders bulletin board, and as fortune would have it, there happened to be a monolithic shell contractor already in the Northeast, building a dome about 50 miles from my property; I was overjoyed - and I had alot to learn.

My contract with Walter Burnham, the builder, had specified May 2003 as the starting date, but as the summer became fall, I was getting nervous as the winters in the Northeast are long and ardous; we finally broke ground for the foundation on Labor Day weekend, and inflated the airform on October 25, 2003.

In the ensuing months, I was tested to use all the skills I have ever learned in my life to grapple with getting the job done. Mishaps included everything from trying to track down a fully-loaded 80,000 lb. cement truck which had gotten lost and stuck in mud over its axles somewhere in the Catskill National Forest, to keeping snow off the top of the 23' high dome at 3am for two months because it had been too cold to spray cement, (and consequently was not yet structurally sound and could collapse); to trying to convince a bank, any bank, for 18 months, that this was a viable project and that comps really do exist ("comparables" are buildings of similar size and shape within a 20 mile radius and have been sold within the last 2 years); to finding out that I was working with two completely different sets of blueprints, and the building inspector could have shut down my project in a heartbeat. I could go on. Many people had regaled me with stories of how long it had taken them to finish their own homes (usually anywhere from 5-10 years), and how lucky I was to have gotten as far as I had in two years. I was not amused.

I would like to emphasize that in no way did I reinvent the wheel here - the Monolithic Dome is simply a new concept for the Northeast. These structures are already very popular in all other parts of the country, as residential and commercial structures. I would also like to emphasize that if I can do it, anyone can do it - I am an artist, and while always having been responsible, do not have the background that the financial institutions like to see; those who are more mainstream and have more experience with moving their money in the right manner would have a much easier time of it.

These Domes are as disaster proof as a building can get. They will withstand tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and fire. They cannot be burned, eaten by bugs or destroyed by mold. They will last for centuries. And because of the concrete's thermal mass, interior temperatures remain stable.

To encapsulate the monolithic process, the following is how the shell is created:

1. The design is engineered and set to blueprints, which are given to the Monolithic Dome Institute. There, they create what is called the AIRFORM, out of PVC-impregnated nylon (the same as river-rafting material), very tough and flexible.

2. The airform gets stretched over the poured concrete ring-beam foundation, attached with a metal band, and inflated like a balloon.

   From the Interior:

3. Polyurethane closed-cell foam is sprayed onto the airform until it is 3 inches thick.

4. Rebar is set onto the foam with "hangers" in a latitude/longitudinal pattern.
5. Cement is sprayed over the rebar and foam until it is 3 inches thick.
6. The air is turned off, and the structure is one solid, freestanding piece.

Following are some photos of the early stages of the process. Click here to view a slideshow of the complete building process. For further information and literature, please visit www.monolithic.com.