Domeshells Sustainable Affordable Housing

The world is suffering a crisis in housing and accommodation. The homeless crisis includes developed countries like Australia, UK, US, Canada as well as many less developed countries. It is applicable to remote and rural communities and urban areas alike.

The number of homeless people increases each year, with few countries being an exception to that. The United Nations has documented that there are around 1.6 billion people residing in poor housing worldwide, with around 15 million being forcibly evicted each year.

In Australia alone, one of the highest developed countries in the world has over 122,000 homeless people as of 22 March 2023.

The problem is exasperated by:

• High cost of and shortage of labor (in some cases)
• High cost of materials and resources
• Red tape and compliance issues
• Lack of available land zoned for residential use
• Out-dated planning laws that don’t accommodate the needs of collaborative, self-sufficient communities.
• Lack of innovation and reluctance to try a new approach.
• Resistance from the establishment that challenge new materials and systems
• Lack of affordable finance solutions

Most traditional styles of housing are not capable of sustaining the increasingly higher levels of extreme conditions and sustainability including:

• Heat and cold – energy efficiency
• Cyclones, hurricanes, and earthquakes – structural adequacy
• Floods – traditional materials are easily damaged by flood.
• Bush fire – incorporating high levels of bush fire resistance is expensive in traditional construction.
• Insect attack – termites and borers love timber.
• Longevity – many traditional materials require significant on-going maintenance.  

Domeshells seeks to solve all the above problems in one simple construction system that uses easily available materials with lower carbon footprint, superior structural performance and almost zero maintenance giving their structures unequaled longevity.

In addition, the basic designs offer exceptionally high levels of protection against extreme elements.

Domeshells construction method is scalable from the most basic method (high labor content) suitable for community participation.

It can also be significantly scaled up by utilizing higher levels of equipment for high volume housing production.

Domeshells are engineer designed from the ground up to adequately handle natural and climate extremes of all kinds and are versatile enough to be adapted for dessert, tropical and freezing conditions.

The method of construction:

• Can be easily learned by semi-skilled workers.
• Can utilize “green” low carbon concrete (where available) offering 28% lower carbon production.
• Utilizes basalt fibre reinforcing bar (or bamboo) – no concrete cancer offering extreme longevity and low maintenance.
• Can utilize local fibre waste by-products for insulation materials such as rice husks, hemp fibre, coconut, and bamboo fibre.
• Tropical countries with bamboo industries can utilise split bamboo and galvanized chicken wire to produce equivalent structural performance.
• Can be undertaken with the most basic equipment using easy to get materials making it ideal for remote communities with minimal resources.
• It is scalable by introducing higher levels of equipment making it suitable for high volume production.
• Can be applied to single domes or interconnected domes of any size diameter.

Materials Required for the Structure

• 90% sand and cement (low carbon cement if available)
• Basalt fibre reinforcing bar
• Small quantity of reinforcing steel
• Lightweight material such as perlite, scoria (volcanic rock), rice husks, coconut fiber, bamboo fiber or any material that can be utilized for lightweight thermal concrete

Rocket Science? No!

A distinct feature of the method is its simplicity. For example, in our 5-day workshops we take students through a hands on experiential workshop at which we construct a 3.0m (10 ft) diameter dome from the slab up in five days. This method uses a unique system whereby the dome structure is fabricated without a mould and is well suited for group participation.

Our most sophisticated method utilizes rigid fiber glass molds to cut the fabrication time and labor by 50%. This method is designed for high volume production.

Domeshells initial vision was to develop a simple system of constructing affordable, sustainable, strong, safe forms of housing that will be capable of sustaining the most extreme forces of nature. A system and methodology that anyone can do and one that is also capable of significant scaling in it,s sophistication to provide for high volume production.

Initially the target population were the less advantaged. Those with limited capital resources and who live in areas and in climate conditions that make their live extremely vulnerable.

In its simplest form it is designed to empower people in communities or alone to Do It Themselves.

It is a solution for those disadvantaged by flood, fire, earthquake, hurricane and cyclones and for anyone economically or resource challenged and for groups and communities at a grass roots level.

Due to increasing severe events and the extraordinary capability of Domeshells structures the technology attracts home owners from all levels of society to address issues like bush fire protection and extreme weather protection in particular.

Ideally, in its most simple form we seek to train others to train others.

In it most sophisticated form, whole communities and villages can be constructed for the homes or those needing to rebuild after natural disasters.

For a comparatively affordable cost, people can live in a structure that they can be confident will survive the extremes it has been designed for, feel safe, secure, comfortable and be free from significant maintenance issues.

Domeshells comprises a small team of less than five plus our consultant engineers and designers.

We have always been a small lean team and we have almost entirely funded our own development.

We have been on this journey since the year 2000. We have received two rounds of Australian Research Council funding projects over a period of 7 years producing two PhD qualified engineers, all based on our unique system.

During this time we fabricated and test many material systems and methods utilizing the university engineering lab and academic staff.

Our team is experienced in several methods of fabricating dome shell structures, composite material systems.

Over twenty years we have built several different technologies and designs in various locations in Australia.

We have never marketed our technology except for maintaining a website. We have allowed ourselves to be driven by market requirements all the time in anticipation of the need becoming greater.

Up until this point much of our development has been funded by serving
the more affluent end of the market during which time we perfected or
improved our methods, systems and equipment

Most recently it has become apparent there is a high level of interest in rural or semi-rural collaborative sustainable communities especially from those who do not have sufficient funds to purchase a home in an established neighborhood.

People are interested to simplify their lives, to downsize and be self sufficient.

This movement/market is where we would like to focus most of our efforts.

First and foremost our technology is for those deemed underprivileged by today's warped standards of success.

Domeshells system is "For the People". It is simple enough for anyone to learn to build superior shelter for themselves and family.

Increasing global interest has required us to develop online manuals that we sell to people all over the world and more recently have set up an Online Dome Building Workshop to teach people, DIY, Owner Builders and Builders.

We:

• Have highly developed and tested systems and methods
• Have an experienced design and structural engineering team
• We have experience from many real projects
• We maintain high integrity in our operations and dealings with customers
• We place a high value on providing service and value for money
• Are driven by being of service to humanity

We currently serve a relatively small section of the overall community with either single dome or multi-dome homes, cabins, tourist accommodation, religious organizations. Many of our customers are in rural areas and they are DIY types or owner builders requiring solution's for bush fire or in Australia, cyclones.

Domeshells have come through a long and exhaustive development process where the team lead "Chris Brown" is satisfied that we have reached all the criteria of performance that we originally set out to do.

Now, we are ready to take it to the world!

Domeshells has developed and survived on minimal capital input. We have pumped all of our excess cash-flow into development of our product.

We are a company dedicated to the development of the technology to meet extremely high levels of structural and sustainable performance while maintaining simplicity and cost effectiveness.

We are confident we have the ultimate product for many of today's housing issues.

Now is our time to focus on awareness of our solutions to maximise the benefits for people in need around the world.

We are at that pivot point where our focus is toward promotion and awareness of what we have to offer and to develop the best, most effective forms of education and training to enable as many people as possible to benefit.

Funding helps a lot of things but public awareness and practical assistance from people with different skill sets will make an enormous difference to our goals of making our technology easily available around the world