My brother and I recently visited a family friend at his farm. It was very apparent that our friend had established and built his farm over many years of hard work and tender loving care.

I told my friend that I liked his gigantic, old-style barn. He said it looked good, but it was no longer safe-- it was in danger of collapse. As we walked to the house, he warned me to be careful where I stepped because the porch was about to collapse. I noticed he had a large cattle feed lot in the backyard. I asked if he rented it now that he was retired. He answered, "No -- it's too far gone -- too rotten."

As we left, my brother remarked that it looked like the farmstead and the owner were both growing old and decrepit together. I have thought about this many times since our visit. Because he was the one who had built the home, the farm buildings, the fences and the feed bunker, none were as old as he was. However, most of it would probably perish during his lifetime. There would be nearly nothing left for his posterity.

I wonder what might have been if he had built a Monolithic Dome barn, an Ecoshell granary, a Monolithic Dome home, and concrete fences with concrete feed bunks. If he had built to last, today he might be applying a fresh coat of paint to wonderful, still very new, structures. And at this point, their value would be more than their original construction costs.

Americans tend to build disposable buildings! Recently I saw a sign on a McDonalds: CLOSED FOR REMODELING. This structure was only 20 years old. A few days later, it was demolished and hauled off in dump trucks. A few months later, a new building took its place. You guessed it -- another McDonalds that looked EXACTLY like the one it replaced.

These buildings are made of materials and methods that do not stand the test of time.

On the other hand, properly made and placed, concrete is like granite. There is nothing like it for permanence. We can shape concrete and mix it in a variety of colors and textures, in a myriad of shapes and sizes, and with wide-ranging physical properties. I like rock! Sunshine will eventually erode even granite, but only on an epic scale. For us mere mortals, it lasts forever.

Monolithic Domes are essentially a one piece rock. They are our own private mountains. Sure, the foam protects the concrete. But even if the Monolithic Dome is left with no maintenance it will last for centuries --- certainly many times longer than anything made of wood. Can you imagine the huge amount of money and resources that are wasted every year replacing rotten, infested, burned and wind-destroyed buildings?

Let's build to last. Let's build Monolithic Domes.

The computer industry is buzzing over "scalability." Put simply, scalability is a measure of how well an operating system "scales" from small to large computers. For example, the most popular operating system on the market (you know which one I'm talking about) does not scale well.

Instead, there are special versions for different computers from small hand-helds to corporate servers. Each version requires completely different types of instructions to work on different types of computer hardware. On the other hand, there is Linux (pronounced Lynn-ucks). It is a free operating system put together by volunteers from around the world.

Linux is touted to be extremely scalable. It can run from a floppy disk or scale up to fill gigabytes of hard drive space. Linux is written like building blocks. If you only need a simple machine with no sound nor mouse, you do not load those blocks. For large projects you load blocks like "Symmetric Multi-Processing" where Linux can use many computers tied together over a network to create one, large super-computer.

The ideas that fuel scalability are changing the computer industry. Instead of creating a solution for a limited segment of the market, a flexible, scalable solution could fill the needs of the whole market. These principles apply to the construction business as well.

A traditional home is built using a wood frame walls and wood trusses for the roof. Commercial buildings use tilt-up concrete walls with steel roofs. You will not see your local Wal-Mart built as an A-Frame wood building. Nor is your neighbor going to use concrete block and steel rebar for their home. These construction methods are, therefore, not scalable. The Monolithic Dome is. The process of applying foam and concrete easily scales from small to gigantic structures. Are you building a house? Use three inches of concrete with steel rebar 10 inches on center.

Building a 43,000 ton cement storage? Use 12 inches of concrete with large steel rebar, 6 inches on center. The building materials are the same for both structures and the methods to apply them are similar. Only the size and building purpose are different.

The advantages scale up, too. The tremendous energy efficiency, the longevity, and disaster resistance are part of all Monolithic Domes from houses to gymnasiums. By applying the principles of scalability to construction we can pool our resources, streamline the construction process, and improve the quality of the buildings.

Why are we as Americans constructing buildings that only last a limited number of years? While riding my bike on the back roads of Texas, I came across a wood building.

At first, it appeared to me as a shack or an old barn. On closer inspection, I could tell it was once someone's home. Long vines of ivy were growing up the west side. On the east side was an overhang that looked, for lack of a better description, like a car port. The windows were long gone and I could not even tell what color the house was originally painted.

The whole structure appeared to slouching because the walls had shifted over the years. I peered inside and could see a staircase leading to a second floor. I could make out several rooms upstairs as well as larger rooms downstairs. I guessed its age was around 80 to 90 years.

There are a few buildings not far from it that are that old. Yet, as I studied it, I realized that it could easily be much younger. Perhaps someone built it in the 30's or maybe even the 40's.

I imagine at one time that it was a very nice house. It was brand new and a family had just moved in. It was clean, modern, and solid. The children would play in the yard and their parents would take care of the home. It was easy.
The house was new. How many years did they live there? Ten? Twenty? When did the house start to shift? When did they have to repaint or replace the aging wood? Where did they go for safety during bad weather?

Over the next twenty years, as the children grew and started to leave home, the house would need more and more care. One day, all the children would be gone and the mother and father would be alone. But the house will need more care than it ever did. Conversely, the couple would be older and less capable of repairing the home.

Eventually, the repairs and bills would be too much and the couple would need to move on. Possibly moving away from their town, friends, and maybe even their family. I ask the question again. Why are we building structures with a limited life span? We have the technology to make our homes last much longer. Let us build for centuries, rather than decades.

I am not arguing that everyone should live in a Monolithic Dome. Although I do feel that the Monolithic Dome is an ideal solution. I am arguing that we should start building permanent, low maintenance structures. Homes of the future, or any future building for that matter, should embody principles of safety, longevity, and low maintenance. The best way to conserve resources is make them last as long as possible.