In 2017 I had an idea to import small housing in from China. I have been to China well over a hundred times. Usually when I go to China, it is to check in on my factories and bring over new designs. I get my work finished for the day, and I am right out the door visiting more factories. I am always looking for anything interesting in China.
I have been visiting factories there for over twenty-five years. It is amazing what you can learn from a factory floor — you see it from concept to completion, and how it is made. It is one of my greatest pleasures in manufacturing. And what better place to attend all the tradeshows. The largest tradeshow in the world is Canton Fair. They hold it twice a year. The fair is over 16.6 million square feet. It holds over seventy-five thousand booths. It is a must to visit.
It was there that I was first introduced to small homes. I made a deal to have models shipped to me in California, then redesigned two of them. The first was the round dome home. The second was a three-section slide home — twenty feet long by eight feet wide, with two equal sections that expand into three. Open size: twenty feet by twenty-four feet. I was the first ever to design and manufacture that three-section slide home.
I sold large quantities to Africa, South America, and Russia. They are very sturdy and hold off cold weather extremely well. They have superior energy efficiency — the spherical shape provides the largest interior volume with the least surface area. That reduced exposure to outside temperatures can make dome homes two to four times more energy efficient than conventional homes.
They also have extreme structural strength. Geodesic domes use a web of interlocking triangles that distribute stress evenly across the entire structure rather than just at right angles. That makes them incredibly resilient against natural disasters — high winds, hurricanes, earthquakes, and snow loads.
I was fascinated with these facts. So I redesigned them like the slices of an apple, with two distinct designs, and devised a system to connect and interlock all of the pieces together. It was a great experience. I still sell them today.
