I am green. I mean that next to my aspirations to build sustainable and self sufficient, when I started this project my greenness mostly revers to my lack of building experience.
My habitat before the Hobbit Dome was my 30 ft Yurt, and putting that up was certainly an experience, however I was mostly the one that handed the building stuff and got supplies. A Yurt is also a real easy construction without many nails, screws or moving parts, except for the deck and finishing the inside. Anyway, I loved the Yurt, mostly because of its round shape and skylight and when I was thinking of a more sustainable, better insulated and perhaps safer structure I was mostly attracted to a dome shaped building. I ended up buying into an Eco Shell Air Form (www.monolithic.com) with 4 friends, which can be reused several times (even up to 100 times they say, if you care for it very well), so everyone could build one or multiple domes with this single investment in an air form. We bought a used one at $2000 with a 20ft diameter. The Ecoshell was originally created to make low cost and safe building possible in developing countries. See a picture of a 20 footer under construction below.
Ok, what is an air form you might ask and how does it work? Well, short and simple, you can blow up the air form and than apply concrete and reinforcement to the outside and Voila - you got yourself a dome. When all is dry you can take the air form out and reuse it. Off course at closer examination there is much more to it and I would like to share my journey as I am making it, so anyone with the same or similar dream, might be inspired and can learn from my experiences and discoveries. I will make pictures at every step and will endeavor to post regularly, so my story is in the moment and fresh from my mind to paper.
My habitat before the Hobbit Dome was my 30 ft Yurt, and putting that up was certainly an experience, however I was mostly the one that handed the building stuff and got supplies. A Yurt is also a real easy construction without many nails, screws or moving parts, except for the deck and finishing the inside. Anyway, I loved the Yurt, mostly because of its round shape and skylight and when I was thinking of a more sustainable, better insulated and perhaps safer structure I was mostly attracted to a dome shaped building. I ended up buying into an Eco Shell Air Form (www.monolithic.com) with 4 friends, which can be reused several times (even up to 100 times they say, if you care for it very well), so everyone could build one or multiple domes with this single investment in an air form. We bought a used one at $2000 with a 20ft diameter. The Ecoshell was originally created to make low cost and safe building possible in developing countries. See a picture of a 20 footer under construction below.
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