A Dome Gymnasium for a School in New Jersey

Gabe Massa is a Partner with Massa Montalto Architects, PC, in Neptune, New Jersey. Massa is building the West Morris Central High School, which will have a dome building raised in June, 2005. The structure will be a Monolithic Dome, and used as a multi-purpose gymnasium.

For a rendered view of the plan, see:

http://www.mma-architects.com/boards02b-CentralFinal_full.shtml

Domes International, Inc., Part 3

With huge funds and charitable monies given governments and non-governmental organizations, there is a large initial effort to supply temporary housing such as tents. After that, it may take at least five months to finalize arrangements for the permanent dwellings and commercial buildings. In the meantime, people rebuild with found materials or mud and straw blocks. In a short time, the new mud buildings could be torn down in a storm.

In January, 2001, an earthquake killed over 100,000 people in Northwest India and caused an additional 100,000 people to be homeless. Domes International built a factory in Ahmedabad, India in 2003. Before the factory was built, Stephen L. Pope mentioned how sad it was to visit a devastated area and see temporary buildings. The buildings were made of cardboard tubes that were wrapped with bamboo and coated with plaster of Paris.

A similar situation occurred in the Honduras and Haiti after the hurricanes of 1998. Poor housing was replaced with additional inferior housing, due to the inaccessible price of strong shelters, even though the costs were sheared down as much as possible.

As part of an effort to introduce domes to Afghanistan for the area’s reconstruction, a dome was donated to the Afghan Ministry of Commerce around six months ago. The dome was donated as part of a marketing effort so that it is being used as a model house. It was part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Afghanistan Investment and Reconstruction Task Force.

The dome was built to house administrative offices of the Afghan Standards Bureau. It took about three months to complete the arrangements to have a donated dome shipped to Afghanistan, although it could have taken only three weeks if arrangements had gone at what would be a normal pace for the U.S. Since most of Afghanistan does not have electrical power supplies, future domes will be fit with solar power to run ceiling fans and other appliances.

It is sad to hear about the length of time to rebuild a disaster area, but very positive to hear about international efforts to supply better housing to third world countries.

For more information on Domes International, Inc.:

http://www.domesintl.com/index.htm