As Florida continues to experience powerful storms, dome and round-shaped houses have stood the test of durability, providing effective solutions to cope with extreme weather.
In 2018, Hurricane Michael made history as the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the northeastern part of Florida. The storm caused widespread damage, flattening numerous buildings and affecting nearly 50,000 structures. However, in a small community overlooking the Gulf at Mexico Beach, Florida, an unusual dome-shaped house remained standing, almost entirely unaffected by winds of 160 mph. The house, named “Golden Eye”, belongs to Margaret Clayton, who designed and built the structure in 2015 with Monolithic Domes.
A round house built by Deltec on the coast. (Photo: Deltec).
Clayton’s neighbor’s house collapsed, sending a transformer crashing into her home and smashing into the wall. “All the houses around me were destroyed or uninhabitable,” Clayton said. Meanwhile, Golden Eye remained intact.
In the United States, hurricanes cause more casualties and damage than any other extreme weather event. Since 1980, there have been 363 weather disasters costing billions of dollars, with hurricanes causing the most severe damage, totaling over $1.3 trillion, averaging $22.8 billion per event. In 2023, hurricanes resulted in 6,890 fatalities. With hurricanes intensifying rapidly due to climate change, even Category 1 storms can cause serious damage, making hurricane-resistant construction increasingly vital.
“Durable architecture combined with the right engineering solutions can help save lives when facing extreme weather,” said Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Miami. “We need to explore how to build structures resilient to climate change because we know that certain types are better suited for specific environments.”
Several construction companies are focusing on dome and round designs. This is the design that American construction company Deltec has concentrated on for the past three decades in efforts to build hurricane-resistant homes. Among the 5,500 dome and round houses the company has constructed, only one house has sustained damage from strong winds, according to Deltec’s data, while the rest have remained sturdy despite facing some of the strongest storms in history, including Irma, Michael, Katrina, Dorian, and most recently, Milton. Interest in dome houses has risen in recent years, according to Deltec’s president, Steve Linton.
The round shape enhances the home’s aerodynamics. According to Linton, the circular design results in significantly less pressure buildup on the house’s exterior. This design also allows the house to absorb and distribute energy better than traditional homes, regardless of wind direction.
The dome shape also has the advantage of not obstructing wind flow around the house. “A conventional house with boxy eaves and a flat roof creates obstacles that impede wind flow. When building a round house, it experiences less force from the wind,” Rhode-Barbarigos explains. “They are not affected by the strong winds we typically encounter in hurricanes.”
Deltec also builds homes using American Southern Yellow Pine, a material more robust than other commonly used woods like Douglas fir. The structures are precisely designed and constructed in a factory setting. Deltec has built homes in all 50 states of the U.S. and over 30 countries worldwide.
But Deltec is not the only company constructing round homes. The first Monolithic Dome was built in 1976 as a potato storage warehouse in Idaho. Today, dome houses can be found worldwide, from the Arctic to tropical regions. Monolithic Dome homes are not built from wood but from concrete and steel, starting with a ring beam at the base of the structure. A PVC membrane is attached to the ring beam and inflated to shape the structure. Polyfoam, known for its rigidity and waterproofing capabilities, is applied to the inner surface of the membrane, while steel reinforcement is attached to the foam surface, followed by multiple layers of concrete known as shotcrete.
