In 1979, Asha Deliverance sewed her first geodesic dome on an old Singer sewing machine. 🧵 She finished in time for it to become her second child's first home. Friends wanted domes too, so she kept sewing. In 1980, she opened the country's first retail dome company. ↓

At 50, Jason Fine quit his union boilermaker job, cashed out his retirement, and bought 29 acres of cheap land in the Missouri Ozarks. 👷🪵🍾🛖 ↓

To Roman poet Ovid, "everything changes, nothing perishes." Emmanuel Pauwels took on the outlandish project of reviving a hilltop ruin in the Spanish Pyrenees. It came back better than it ever was. Before rebuilding Cal Guerxo, he spent a year watching sun, wind, rain & snow. ↓

For 20 years, Anders Solvarm dreamed of a self-feeding solar house, framed in timber (treated with vinegar so it won't rot) instead of metal. His A-frame greenhouse home is a full-cycle indoor homestead. It pushes what "off-grid" can mean in a climate as harsh as Sweden's. ↓

In 2021, Copenhagen pushed "King-of-Trolls" Thomas Dambo out of his old hangar to make room for a highway. 🧌 So he took the whole workshop & moved onto an old farm outside the city. A no man's land became his Wonderland Homestead: & the hub of his artist-maker business. ↓

She grew up in Manhattan. She now lives inside a hill, a limestone boulder hollowed out over centuries, with 400 km of old quarries turned into homes. Since she moved to Bourré, Thea Carini has restored 4 troglodyte homes, one after another, all carved into the same hillside. ↓

An abandoned building is never fully empty: it's just waiting for someone who can read what's carved into its walls. In New Hampshire, Kreg & Danielle Jones weren't looking for a home. They wanted a project big enough to take on with their 18-year-old son before he left home. ↓

20 years ago, Dan Durica went looking for a place with the good parts of city, suburb & countryside & none of the weight. He found a village in northeast Missouri, @dancingrabbit, & built the house himself. 💵 $15,000 total, solar & batteries included; 🌾 $50/month for the land. ↓

Underground doesn't have to mean dark, & it doesn't have to mean a bunker. Twenty years ago, Zachi & Allison Anderson started digging into a hillside in Grass Valley, California. Heat, cold & fire risk above; steady, temperate ground below. ↓

Ford Roosevelt grew up on stories about the boat where his grandfather, FDR, ran the country. By the time he was grown, it had sunk. The USS Potomac was FDR's "Floating White House" (the one place he could move freely without the world seeing that he couldn't walk). ↓

Can you get a roundhouse of hempcrete, cob & lime permitted in rural California? 🐚 Most houses are built to seal the world out, but Neil & Stella built one that breathes: walls of hemp, lime & sand that resist fire, earthquakes & mold while keeping the air inside clean. ↓

Before Conway ever picked up a shovel, he'd already spent years living underground: one of four men crewing a Titan II nuclear missile silo for the Air Force. Whether that's where the idea came from, even his son isn't sure. Conway never said. ↓

"More structure, less pressure." That's the motto John landed on after a layoff left him with $6,000 in savings — & having lived on the street as a teen. Instead of rushing to build a house, he started with the systems that make a home possible. ↓

Before Conway ever picked up a shovel, he'd already spent years living underground: one of four men crewing a Titan II nuclear missile silo for the Air Force. Whether that's where the idea came from, even his son isn't sure. Conway never said. ↓

Anki didn't move to the Mediterranean. Instead, she built her own enclosed version of the Med (inside a greenhouse home in a Swedish forest). Two prefab containers at the edge of a national park, wrapped whole in glass: her own warm climate inside the cold North. ↓

They couldn't find an affordable high-end prefab, so they created their own. Priced out of Madrid for the second time, young couple Ignacio & Pilar bought a steep, pine-covered lot on the outskirts & built a family home that fits the hillside without felling a single tree. ↓

Ryan grew up hunting & fishing in Arkansas' Ouachita Mountains — food from the land wasn't a hobby, it was just life. After years of long hours running a roadside convenience store, he saw raw mountain land listed cheap (no road access), sold the store & started building. 🧵↓

If you grew up watching Fly Away Home, you already know Bill Lishman. He's the guy who flew an ultralight ahead of a flock of Canada geese to teach them their migration route. The real story is even better 🪿🏡 ↓

In 2010, GT Hill paid $90,000 for an abandoned, flooded Titan II missile complex buried in the Arkansas hills, sealed shut & forgotten by the government that built it. He didn't want a bunker. He wanted a homestead for the ages, built on his own terms. ↓

Where most would see a ruin on a lake, Klaus saw a beginning. 🌲 A forsaken 1.5-hectare island in Finland, bought for next to nothing & untouched for 42 years — just a collapsing 150-year-old log cabin & an old sauna where generations before him had been born. ↓

Deep in the Arkansas Ozarks (past a flooded creek crossing & a long limestone driveway), a door opens into a mountain. Behind it: a 6,000-sq-ft home the cave is slowly, quietly reclaiming. The same place where outlaws like Jesse James often hid ↓

He was told his Fresno land was worthless hardpan. So Baldassare Forestiere, a Sicilian immigrant, picked up a shovel & carved burrows, domes, & sunken gardens 20 ft down, planting 20+ citrus species. 50 rooms, 40 years ⛏️🍊 Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/land-...) & YT (youtu.be/mUKRPoQKynk)

After a rat-race life & vanlife, Martin found his way to freedom: water 🌊 Anchor for free on the Tennessee River, move every 14 days. ~$100/month & an all-public shoreline mean he lives on a moving nature preserve. 🏙️🚤🌲 Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/solo-...) & YT (youtu.be/7knce4Eh7xU)

Can you have Mediterranean gardens at Alaska latitudes? This family wrapped their Norway home in a greenhouse, growing figs, grapes & citrus in the snow year-round. On freezing days, they garden barefoot in midwinter. ☀️ Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/famil...) & YT (youtu.be/irp_HPzfxbQ)

They lost their suburban home to debt & a flood. Instead of rebuilding the same trap, they built a home, debt-free. Life building with 2 kids 1st & tornadoes since, yet they thrived. Their life rebuilt on different terms. Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/lost-...) & YT (youtu.be/RXUUilqk7KA)

They called the land worthless. Vici saw a stone home. 30 years later, the studio she carved into a Serifos hillside (funded by renting a part in high season) is an ideal prototype for low-impact Cycladic architecture 🪨🌿 Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/build...) & YT (youtu.be/tCo3stKAIm4)

He couldn't afford a house, so he pulled one out of the ground. Kyle Yoder's 1st home, aka Gnome Dome, was an 80 sqft earthbag igloo rebuilt for ~$3K. Now he's building a larger semi-buried earthen home with a green roof. Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/could...) & YT (youtu.be/rwrmV2N8QWM)

Can a triangle be a home? Tilemachos Andrianopoulos shaped this home around a Greek olive grove: low at its tip, growing uphill until it opens completely, so the trees come in, & topped with a living roof of local plants. Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/pytha...) & YT (youtu.be/0fs5JxH4qJU)

Following legacy rules can backfire. When he was told not to build underground in 1976, he did it anyway. A ravaging F4 tornado in 1990 (Springfield, MO) proved him right: his house was unscathed, as neighbors lost it all. Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/was-t...) & YT (youtu.be/UkzKW1jsWqk)

What if your dream cottage fit between the trees out back? In 2013, Su Pang built a 500-sqft Swedish-inspired home in her Oakland backyard —around old redwoods, walnuts & a bathtub on the deck. Mortgage-free ever since 🛁 🛖 Video via *FC (faircompanies.com/videos/swedi...) & YT (youtu.be/7glOSGqPqCE)