Dome

It began, as so many modern-day architectural musings do, in a Welsh campsite toilet queue.

There I was at Hilton Court, expecting no more than compost loos and the odd fairy-lit yurt, when I stumbled across a vast glittering dome tucked among the shrubbery. At first glance, it looked like the Eden Project had spawned a satellite pod and deposited it in Pembrokeshire. Inside, a botanical fever dream – palms, banana trees, looping vines, hanging wicker baubles, and enough humidity to ruin a cravat.

It was, as it turns out, just a greenhouse.

But not just a greenhouse. No, this was a geodesic dome – that utopian bubble beloved of American futurist Buckminster Fuller. He of the 1960s “let’s dome over Manhattan and regulate the weather” fame. He saw domes not as fancy sheds, but as the future of civilisational efficiency. Less weight, less waste, more structure – what’s not to like?

Turns out: the maintenance.

But more on that in a moment. Because my brain – which should’ve been focused on where I’d left the barbecue tongs – instead leapt across the North Sea to Copenhagen, where the Danes decided to take Bucky seriously.

There, in one of the city’s largest plazas, sits the Dome of Visions – a full-scale geodesic greenhouse encasing not tomatoes or palm trees, but a house. A deliberately minimalist one, made for a family of four, built from low-impact materials, with no glue or chemicals, and plonked right in the middle of this transparent shell.

The idea? That the dome becomes your external wall – a kind of weatherproof forcefield – allowing the actual house inside to be featherlight. Like living inside a Russian doll, if the outer doll was a giant Perspex hedgehog.

And in principle, it’s marvellous. A climate-controlled bubble of serenity in which you can grow lettuce, save the planet, and read Kierkegaard in your underpants all year round. The Danes pitched it as a challenge to traditional building norms – a “third space” that is both inside and outside. Very hygge, very edgy, very clever.

But – and it’s a big but – how the hell do you clean it?

Because what looks minimalist and inspiring in the architectural press becomes, quite quickly, a logistical nightmare once nature kicks in. Rain splashes, birds poop, insects commit aerial suicide. Algae creeps in. And before you know it, your gleaming dome of the future looks like the inside of a frog’s armpit.

Enter the Eden Project, Cornwall’s contribution to sci-fi horticulture, and the only dome project I’ve seen that actually plans for this. Their answer? ETFE. A magical transparent membrane that self-cleans in the rain, like the lotus leaf of architectural materials. You only need to send the abseilers in every couple of years for the stubborn bits. It’s maintenance by design – literally letting the weather do the work.

Compare that to Hilton Court’s noble effort, or the Dome of Visions, and you realise: unless your dome is made of miracle plastic, you’re going to need scaffolding, a team of mountaineers, and possibly a priest.

I’m not knocking it. I love the ambition. The idea of shielding your life from the elements in a great glass cocoon, like a tomato under cloche, is deeply appealing. Especially when the weather outside is horizontal.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Most of these domes – beautiful, bold, clever as they are – will, without vigilant attention, end up resembling a frogspawn terrarium from the outside. The dream will persist, but you won’t be able to see it through the grime.

Still, the next time someone suggests insulating your home with three feet of sheep’s wool and a vapour barrier thick enough to stop gamma rays, just point them at the Danes and say, “Or, we could live in a greenhouse.”

Just make sure you’ve got a cherry picker on standby.