This home is circular and very wide compared to its height, so it approximates a discus in shape. Also I am squashing the shape down to lower ceiling height and using more than half of the shell above ground. This helps the walls be more vertical on the outer edges and gives more of a space ship feel to the home, which makes the shape of the home more discus-like. Also I used to throw the discus in high school, so why not call it that?
It all started with the Ellipse dome home design. It had a tall ceilings and some perimeter loft area. I thought "Hmmm, why not put some arcade games up in the loft?", so I did. Then I wanted some more games up there so I closed in the tall ceilings and made an attic. Then i realized I could change the geometry of the house and create more room upstairs for more games, so I did that and the Colonial dome home plan was born. Seeing a pattern here? Then I thought if the gameroom is upstairs there should be a bathroom on the same floor so people wouldn't slip and fall on the steps, and the house ended up as a 4 bed / 3 bath with over 3500 square feet! This was fine for a big family, but I just don't need that much space. So I stopped the runaway train and went back to a single-story design, the Discus.
In the line drawing at the top of this document you can see the overall layout of the Discus dome home. We still have the concept of designing the home around a large great room, but now the great room is in the center of the home. Space is saved becaust the living room is adjacent to the arcade, which enables the seating in the living room to serve the purpose of the arcade couch so we don't need space for an arcade couch anymore. Also there are no stairs required since the home is a single story residence. The bedrooms are smaller and the kid's bath is smaller too. One added feature is the foyer which is so large that i put an adult's office on one side and a kid's school area on the other.
As with the Ellipse and Colonial dome home plans, the master bedroom is on the opposite side of the house from the kids bedrooms. This helps to keep the peace in the family as noises do not travel between the two zones very well. There does remain the issue of sound travelling through the air vents, however this is normal for any home. Also, dome homes are known for echoes and sound reverberation across the dome surface. This is minimized by having all of the walls extend all the way to the roof. Thus, sound is blocked and will not travel across the dome surface easily.
One problem that I face in designing a home for myself is that I would like to have approximately 18 arcade machines plus two pinball machines in the home. Arcade collectors have many creative solutions for putting games in their homes, including use of garages, spare rooms, attics, add-on construction, and distributing the games throughout the home. With the Colonial I created a huge 1200 square foot arcade, but then when it comes time for resale there is a problem. Most people don't have any need for a 1200 square foot hobby room, nor are they willing to pay for it. The Discus home solves this problem by distributing the games throughout the home, with a concentration of them in the great room and the foyer. This way another home owner will simply have some extra space where the arcade games used to be - and a few extra wall sockets.
The kids bathroom is 150 square feet, large enough to support two kids even if they are teenage girls and have 750,000 bottles of shampoo and beauty products. The master bath is even more spacious. This is partly for resale value, partly because the master bath will have a Jacuzzi, and partly because chicks dig large bathrooms. I'm a single guy and I want to make a good impression on a lady, and a giant bathroom with luxurious Jacuzzi is just the thing. Also for the sake of luxury and convenience I would like both a bidet and a urinal in the master bath. In fact if they come up with any more technology to keep you clean, then I want that too!
This home has abundant closet space for two adults and two kids. Each of the kid's bedrooms has a fifteen foot wide closet, and the master bedroom has a fifteen foot deep walk-in closet. I feel that closets are too small in most homes, so it only makes sense to size tham up a little bit. Besides, a huge walk-in closet is another chick-attracting feature.
The bedrooms are comfortable in size, but they are made somewhat smaller by the curved and angled walls in them. This is an intentional aspect of the design, as the bedrooms should be a place to sleep, not to live. The living is done in the rest of the house. Still, though modest, the bedrooms are adequate for a family of four.
One luxurious feature of the home design is the foyer/desk area. Here we have the front door entrance to the home, and on either side we have desk space for people to use. The School area is for homework, kids computers, studying, and even home schooling if that is what the family is doing. The Office is a combination computer desk and lab bench for the adults to use. This is a key component of my livestyle since I work at home and do inventing and other things much of the time. Since I have this work-at-home lifestyle, it only makes sense to share it with the kids by giving them their own study-at-home area. Along the interior wall adjacent to the great room is space for about 40% of the arcade games. Yes, arcade games in the office, I'm still a kid too you know.
The kitchen is huge because the laundry and much of the storage is in the kitchen, plus there is no garage so the kitchen and the school will become home for semi-outside items such as skateboards, rollerblades, toys, gardening supplies, and stuff like that. Pardon the repetition, but big kitchen = chick magnet, need I say more?
There is the issue of storage, and the abundant closets are still not enough to meet this requirement. The plan is to put two-foot-deep shelves in the bedrooms and kitchen, up above the top of the doorways. This is possible because the dome is so tall in the center. Access to the storage areas will be by ladder, so no stairs are required.
A problem that occurs in some of my home designs is pointy corners. When you keep all your walls at 90 degree angles you keep construction costs down, but you have an issue with pointy corners. What do you put there, a triangular shelf unit? That would be deeper than it is wide. It's just wasted space. So with the Discus plan i put some of the walls on 45 degree angles, eliminating the pointy corners. Still, there are funky angles and curves to deal with but these are more accommodating than the pointy corners.