The World’s Greenest Homes Features Bear Creek Dome

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The World’s Greenest Homes Features Bear Creek Dome

Healthy Child

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The Discovery Channel HD Cable show Planet Green has a fantastic segment focusing on The World's Greenest Homes. This show is a wonderful resource for tips on creating a healthier environment in your home as well as a glimpse inside the pioneers behind some of today's most innovative and intentional architecture and design.

We are especially excited because this weekend they will feature the home of our Board Chair, Tessa Hill. Tessa and her husband, sustainable architect and innovator Dennis Odin Johnson, live in the newest of his originally designed dome homes, an environmentaly friendly and energy efficient modern structure. Bear Creek Dome is located on 50 wooded acres in North Branch, Minnesota, just north of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and is the latest edition from his Natural Spaces Domes building and design firm.

Focusing on designing a building for the next seven generations, Dennis believes in the “sustainability cost”, which is defined as the cost to tomorrow's global society. Some of the major green advantages of his dome homes are:

His domes use 60% less structural materials in building the dome's outer shell (in contrast to a conventional, comparable box house), making them extremely resource efficient.
The spherical shape of the dome deflects tornadoes and hurricanes, making it one of the strongest lightweight structures around, able to withstand winds over 200 miles per hour.
The phenomenal strength of the dome shell can withstand snow loads in excess of 150 pounds per square foot.
Most of the structural wood framing materials are FSC Certified and the plywood is formaldehyde free. The interior panels of the dome shell are made from spruce wood boards that do not need to be finished with any chemical sealers or paints.
His domes provide simple, inexpensive building methods allowing thicker walls which, in turn, allow for more insulation (of any type).

Bear Creek Dome will be featured on The World's Greenest Homes on the following days:

November 14th, Friday 5:30 PM Central Time
November 15th, Saturday 1:30 AM Central Time
November 15th, Saturday 9:30 AM Central Time

Enjoy, learn, and be inspired by these sustainable dwellings that provide the healthiest environments possible, where it matters most - in the home.

Posted by Shiva on 12/29/2008 at 05:35 AM

Excellent post. The link Natural Spaces Domes mentioned above is great. I found it very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Posted by Moumita on 12/29/2008 at 05:21 AM

Nice post. I love the World’s greenest home episodes especially the solar umbrella part. Thanks for linking.

Posted by Dillon on 11/11/2008 at 03:01 PM

Hi there. First, I love this website! And second, I just wanted to say that it’s important to go green in building your homes, BUT it is also extremely important to ‘green’ everything you put in them! For example, why not buy a kitchen table made from recycled beautiful wood, instead of paying for something that had to cut down another tree to produce for you. Anything you put in your house can be chosen from sustainable or recycled sources, its really just up to you to make the first move!
I really hope D.C. makes an effort to show this side of house greening in the future. I believe in the “sustainability cost,” and I work for a company that makes it possible for people to get the stuff they need to live a sustainable lifestyle. Thanks!
-Dillon (greenhome.com)

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