Some gawk at unusual new Murrysville house
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Tony Tye, Post-Gazette photosLaurie Thompson stands near the bottom of a floating staircase. The staircase will have railings when completed.
Click photo for larger image.
For the past several months, motorists tearing along Trafford Road in Murrysville have been slowed to a crawl by the sight of three huge domes, mushrooming up from the soil on a hillside to the east.
The colossal hemispheres dwarf the teams of construction workers, well-drillers and other technicians at the site. Their organic shapes draw a stark architectural contrast to the rows of large, boxy, cookie-cutter homes just across the road in the Hilltop Estates plan, all of which adhere to a palette of tasteful beiges and taupes.
"We've had lots of people driving by, checking out the house," said Rob Thompson, who is living in Edgewood until his house is finished in August. "We had one guy here for about a week, just hanging out. Finally we had to ask him to leave -- he was holding up the workers."
Thompson is building his dream home in Murrysville, but it is no ordinary McMansion. He is an admirer of R. Buckminster Fuller, who invented the modern geodesic dome house in response to the housing shortages of World War II. The strong, energy-efficient structure was able to be produced rapidly and cheaply, because its rounded shape enclosed a larger area with less building materials.
Thompson has been planning this attention-grabbing house for the last 10 years. It took him more than a year to plan it all out and another year to find the perfect piece of land. And it had to be perfect -- the triangular windows, designed for solar heat, tilt at a precise angle and are oriented to follow the sun during the wintertime. He envisioned a home that was energy-efficient and environmentally friendly, and hired an architect and an engineer to turn his ideas into blueprints.
First Published June 19, 2005 12:00 am
