So we got a kit from Pacific Domes. These are really amazing and affordable shelters which are portable and can be built with just a couple of reasonably intelligent adults.

Ours is a 30 foot diameter dome, canvas skin over metal bars. We put our dome on top of a 4 foot riser wall to raise the top up enough that we could build a loft in the back (North) half of the dome. The bathroom and kids room are under the loft, the living room and kitchen are in the front (South) half.

We've learned some things about living in this space...
We are very close to the outside environment which is good and bad. We can hear the humming birds that cruise around the outside of the dome. If it rains really hard for several days and saturates the canvas, we start to get some water drippage inside; managable but annoying at times. We insulated with a layer of 'reflectix' which has helped a lot. With that insulation and careful management of the bay window exposure, we can create and maintain a 10-20 degree temperature difference from the air outside, but not more than that. We end up going to bed early on winter nights to avoid the cold and taking siesta on summer afternoons to tolerate the heat. Domes are not 'passive solar' in the summer when we get sun all the way around on all surfaces of the dome, no shade is really created. The bay window is a great passive solar fixture in the winter when we are able to warm the interior of the dome up for the day with just sunlight, we only have to run the wood stove at night.

We observe that we are sick less, that negative emotions seem to disipate more quickly. The round space is certainly energetically and psychically superior to living in a space defined by square corners. In our future creation of living space we hope to preserve some organicness of shape, rounded and softened edges, but also to create a more temperature comfortable space.