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Would Living in a Round House Be Awesome, or Would It Suck?

Those are the only two options

By Rain Noe - April 7, 2020

in Architecture

So like the rest of you, I'm distracting myself from worst-case COVID-19 scenarios. My latest mental escape of choice is looking at photos of dome houses, which look cool as hell.

Well, of course they always look good in photos--a professional photographer could've made my first Brooklyn apartment look good. But when I start looking at floorplans of round houses, I'm thinking that living in them would actually suck.

In these panicked times, there is no room for nuance, grey area or anything but total allegiance to one of two extreme viewpoints. You must decide whether living in a circle would be Awesome or would Totally Suck. Here is a sampling of floorplans to help you decide.

Minuses:

- Visual discord as a result of trying to reconcile rectilinear furniture with curved walls, and/or weird trapezoid-shaped rooms

- Wasted space where rectilinear furniture meets curved surface

- Can pay for built-in furniture to meet curves, but that gets pricey

- DIY'ing built-in furniture to meet curves will require tons of scribing and difficult-to-nail curve cutting

- Unusable space where walls meet floor at weird angle

It looks like you have to build a big-ass circle, one so large in footprint that you essentially flatten the curve (sorry to use that phrase) of the wall, before the issue of rectilinear furniture in a curved space starts to go away.

Pluses:

- Round shapes better disperse hurricane-force winds

- More efficient to heat if you have a central fireplace

- Your house will become a landmark used by neighbors giving directions ("You're gonna pass this weird round house, then take the next left")

Anyways, your verdict: Yea or Nay?

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Michael DiTullo

5 years ago

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I want to see photos of builds of some of those floor plans with the central courtyards!

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Marvin McConoughey

11 months ago

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I didn't like any published round house plan when we built our round house. Instead, we designed our own house with a hall between a center row of rooms and a northern set of bedrooms with one bath. The other bathroom is in the center row. The house is a joy to live in, particularly because of the dramatic living room looking out over our woods. The kitchen is a curve on the outside wall with a straight pantry and one straight passthrough between the kitchen and dining room. My wife once said "It is the best kitchen going".

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Marvin McConoughey

a year ago

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I have lived in a round house since November, 1987. We--my wife and I--designed it, built it, and furnished it. We also did the landscaping. I may know more, personally, about building one's own round house than 99.9 percent of home owners. Some random comments: We designed a one story, 2550 square foot, house that cantilevers out over a round concrete foundations. Those who say that round houses are less space efficient are correct. If that is your primary, or only, concern, don't build a round house. But if your goal is the maximum personal house satisfaction per dollar, then a round house might be right for you. I've written a small book for my own enjoyment on designing and building the round house.

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isomorphismes isomorphismes

2 years ago

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I've talked to someone who lives in a roundhouse (Fuller dome) and the curved furniture does make it not worth doing. They have built-in countertops (out from the center) but sticking furniture up against the wall is a daily annoyance.

My idea of how to get around this was simply to use a polygon instead of a circle. Studs are typically spaced 16" (.4 metre) apart, 24" (.6 metre) also happens.

I wonder if you could get a significant part of the benefits of curvature (mainly = removing the extremely sharp 90-degree angle as it impacts vision and movement) making e.g. 10-degree bends every 3 metres (6 studs).

If you want a nice long table up against the wall, it should be at least 2 metres, this is a full reach out with both hands.

Bookshelves and storage cubes, similar. IKEA's largest KALLAX is 62" (1.6 metres).

Moving around spaces that feel spacious, the 2-metre measurement seems like an important one to me. Can two people pass each other comfortably (without turning sideways)? That might necessitate two wingspans in a kitchen. Conversely, can the cook get from the counter to the island in one step? A step is about a metre (half a wingspan).

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Mark Kisenwether

5 years ago

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Ever since I first considered moving to Florida I grappled with the concept of designing a dwelling which would not only be resilient to the common problems of environmental degradation as well as critter and insect attacks, but also resilient to the extreme weather conditions Florida has to offer.

Dome style structures whether they be built on a continuous radius or multi-sided are by far the most resilient to the external forces of nature. Driven by my autodidactism I began doing extensive research on all types of structures from yurts to igloos to geodesic domes. My searches revealed that someone had tried to market pod style modular homes I believe in the 1950s (you'll pardon my working from memory as my research documents were lost in my move from PA to FL).

As is still common today, the major resistance the inventor faced was created by the lack of understanding and adapting to the concept of dwellings that aren't simply a box of boxes. By far the majority of homes in the world are nothing more than a box of boxes; a big box divided into smaller boxes. Personally, I have always found the concept hideous as I prefer vast open spaces to being stuck in a box. Round dome concept dwellings create the maximum amount open space and even when combined with a loft, the openness is still not lost.

Perhaps it was my time in the Navy and fascination with shipbuilding, or simply my eccentric nature, but adapting building on a radius is quite simple and easy if one stops thinking in squares. If one is going to make the jump into the tremendous benefits of a round/dome style dwelling, why do they still insist on limiting themselves to accepting the inefficiencies and boring nature of square walls and furniture? Break free! - MarkKw

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Mike Nelson Pedde

5 years ago

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It depends on how you define 'round'. Igloos are dome-shaped. Yurts have a round footprint but vertical walls and a central peak. Of course you could ask the people at Deltec Homes: https://www.deltechomes.com/ or Mandala Design: https://www.mandalahomes.com/
If you make each wall 8' long but have a number of them, you have space for your furniture and a round house. You can also build interconnected pods for bedrooms, living space, garage, etc.

And then there are the Rotating houses... 🙂

Mike.

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Donald Jones

5 years ago

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If it looks like Living with the Lands, that would be awsome. https://www.farmflavor.com/florida/walt-disney-world-farm-grows-magical-produce-earth/

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Tee Jay

5 years ago

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It would be fun to *STAY* in one (short term AirBNB for instance). It would suck to *LIVE* in one. While some of the floor plans are intriguing, it's just not an efficient design for living in.

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Eric Jacobsen

5 years ago

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It would be awful, because it does the opposite of what an airy, high-ceiling evokes. Even if you had a 12 foot ceiling but it’s rounded, the “collapsing” effect makes it feel like a seven foot ceiling.

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