On May 20, 1982, I was invited to stay in the dome of the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy at New Gourna. Consequently I began to dream of building a dome house for myself. Five years later, we developed a technique at the University of Kassel to build domes from adobes (earth blocks) without formwork. Since then, I have built 47 earth domes in Europe, Africa, Asia, and America; the largest of these has an interior diameter of 11m and a height of 7m, and is used as a multipurpose hall for a kindergarten. In my own home, all main rooms are covered by a dome of adobe.
