澳大利亚混凝土泡泡屋

Architect-built concrete bubble house in Australia is for sale

Many architects dream of one day building their thesis projects in real life to test out the heady design ideas that coalesce at the tail end of an architectural education.

After graduating from

Queensland Institute of Technology

's Department of Architecture and Industrial Design in the late 1970s, Australian architect Graham Birchall of Birchall and Partners architects spent a decade doing just that by working to implement concepts from his thesis to create a distinctive, one-of-a-kind Bubble House.

Birchall's senior thesis sought to explore the material properties of

Ferrocement

, a technique that uses thin shell concrete and wire mesh to create complex spaces and enclosures. Following graduation, Birchall worked to build his Bubble House using his own money, time, and labor ultimately rendering a complex home that to this day evokes a futuristic way of life that draws on these elemental and imaginative material properties. The home, built between 1983 and 1993, was constructed with the help of Birchall's father-in-law, Ed Bohl, who worked most evenings and weekends alongside the architect testing construction techniques and developing fabrication methodologies to complete the project.

36 years after being completed by Birchall and Bohl, the home is now for sale. The home, which is made up of spherical steel wire meshes covered in concrete, spans over 11,000 square feet of space and contains three bedrooms, a double-height library, a reading room, a circular kitchen outfitted by a master shipbuilder, and a collection of dining and living spaces.

Included as well is a "tiered media room" and a custom fireplace, also designed and forged by the architect himself. The fireplace extends through two levels of the house, while an integrated water tower cooling system draws away heat in addition to providing ambient water sounds to enliven the home's interior spaces.

With eleven domes and a floor plan made up of intersecting spheres, pretty much everything in the house is round, down to the countertops, desks, and other furniture elements.

The home also includes a basement level workshop and four-car garage that are tucked into the building's gently rolling site.

The Bubble House.