A Dome-Building Revolution
Metro News is Canada’s largest free national newspaper reaching about 1.1 million readers from coast to coast. This week, the paper’s environmental columnist put the focus on Monolithic Domes, proclaiming that dome-shaped schools just may spark a building revolution.
“The idea is spreading across North America – and around the globe,” writes reporter Ben Knight in his Going Green column.
“We are at as low a price as you can build a school,” Monolithic’s president David B. South says in the article. “Anything that’s got any architecture to it — any masonry or anything like that — we’re less money. The buildings are greener than grass. They’ll always come up gold or silver in LEED certification. And then the fun thing is that we’ve now got to where FEMA (the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency) has recognized these buildings for their strength. One school got 95 per cent of the cost of the building from FEMA because it’s also now the town’s tornado shelter.”
Knight points out that Canada’s first Monolithic Dome was constructed in 1978. As for the future, Monolithic cabins may soon be coming to Arctic Canada. “You can ship these up there and plant them, and you’ve got a building that there’s nothing nature can do to hurt you,” South says.