We got out to the land last week, and man is it beautiful! And perfect for our project, a nice south facing slope with a big hill as a wind break to the north. It's ten acres square and the slope of the land was calling out for a one acre circular garden right in the center. We mapped out our site and have a pretty good idea where we'll be putting these first domes, but you never know what the land will call for along the way. Our first soil tests show that we need more sand, we'll have a better idea once we begin digging but we'll probably have to bring some in. And you won't believe the sunsets out here, and the stars!
We're going to only build in the Northwest quadrant of the land this year, and camp just south of that on a nice flat area we already swept for cacti. We've decided to start with a twelve foot dome which will act as food storage during the build and eventually become a back room of a future multi-dome house. In the sketch we've highlighted the initial domes that we will build in phase one, with the rest of the rooms added on once we've established the best techniques for our specific climate. The garden is the circle in the middle, with the very center of that having a twenty foot hangout workstation, and maybe a firepit or sundial, and the rectangle is the walipini greenhouse. Each quadrant will have a firepit and outdoor community space in the middle with clear line of sight to the garden, and the community center is just a short wheelbarrow load from the greenhouse. (One block of graph paper is twenty feet, sorry it's a little fuzzy, but you get the idea.)
Our first few long-term volunteers are about to be here, and it's a good thing because we've got a "little" site prep to do.
