Underground living – Texas style – Monolithic Dome Structures Italy, Texas USA
Dig a hole 66 metres x 23 metres x 10 metres deep (200’x75’x30′), blow up your shell, start pumping concrete and insulation, fill it back up again and you have your typical underground dome home!
Visitors to Glenn Young’s Monolithic Dome home often have a problem finding his front door. That’s because Glenn and John St. Pé, co-owners of Dome Contractors, Inc., built Glenn’s Monolithic Dome home completely underground. “We’ve had people come out who didn’t know there was a house there and actually parked on top of it,” Glenn said.
And that’s surprising, since Glenn’s home is anything but small. It has 3000 square feet of living space within five, interconnected Monolithic Domes flanked by two EcoShells. Entrance tunnels lead into these EcoShells or foyers. A 15-foot-diameter EcoShell with a three-foot stem wall serves as a front foyer while a 12-foot-diameter EcoShell with a four-foot stem wall serves as the back one.
Although his home is windowless and buried, with the creative genius of Houston artist James Perez, Glenn found a spectacular way of bringing the outdoors in. Perez painted outdoor scenes on the walls and ceilings. These all-encompassing murals give each dome its own exotic, colorful, realistic environment. “Each dome has its own sky with clouds, and the outdoor scenes give the rooms more depth,” Glenn said.
The home is apparently for sale right now. If living underground appeals to you, you’ll find the sales brochure here.
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It’s not underground but it’s certainly green – The Ryan Residence