This beautiful and sustainable home is located in the middle of a lychee garden in China. It was designed and built by the UK furniture design company Timothy Oulton. The dome was constructed using FSC-certified and reclaimed wood and serves as a relaxing retreat for the brand’s designers wishing to escape the hectic city life and replenish their creative stores surrounded by nature.
Dome Home was built in accordance to the stringent Passive House standards, and the designers claim that only the equivalent of boiling a kettle of water is needed to heat or cool its interior. The home is also fitted with triple-glazed windows, while the walls are very well-insulated to further keep the costs and energy expenditure down.
Construction of Dome Home proved quite challenging, since very precise engineering was required. Timothy Oulton hired a UK-based firm to oversee the construction. The home was built out of 80 prefabricated timber panels, which had to be cut very accurately so that the walls of the home could fit together seamlessly. The exterior shell of the home is entirely self-supporting meaning that they did not need to install any support pillars inside.
Due to this, the interior is one open space, with a set of stairs leading up to a mezzanine level. The spiral staircase is also made of reclaimed wood. The interior of the dome was fitted with custom designed furniture, which was made locally in China. The interior is furnished as a cozy office space, with armchairs and sofas, though this could easily also be furnished as a home or a cabin. The mezzanine level is spacious enough for a bedroom, while the ground floor makes for a unique lounging and dining area. And it also already features a modern, fully-equipped kitchen.
Christine,
While we all acknowledge that sustainability is truly a global endeavor, I have searched local sources for reclaimed wood and find the offering is often no more than a few board feet if not actually non-existent. There are indeed a few sources of reclaimed lumber here in the USA that offer very specific (and often exotic or “rustic”) types of lumber, but no sources of commodity materials for general consumption. Most sources of reclaimed wood are a matter of pure chance and serendipity.
When someone comes up with sources for reclaimed wood that are reliable enough to serve a commercial market such as we have here in the USA, that will be worth a few lines.
If, when you say “reliable” sources of reclaimed wood, you mean consistent, you are sort of missing the point of sustainable design. Sustainability’s bedrock is ecology, thus diversity and variation. Reusing wood isn’t a science. Consistency is not a requirement for it to be worthy of mention. Since human life depends on ecological health, it makes sense that it shapes design and consumption, instead of the other way around. In the U.S. we have an abundance of wood that can be reused; albeit often with greater effort (e.g. “rustic” wood can be milled and/or sanded to a contemporary look). Local demand will increase local organization. The patterns of “general consumption” are merely habitual. Habit should not supersede reason. Waiting for further environmental pressure to change our habits and increase demand is diametrically opposed to the intended ecological preservation. Thus exposure and knowledge, like this article, is paramount to sustainability.