"Dome Home" Survives Hurricane Hit

A distinctly shaped Pensacola Beach, Florida, residence designed to withstand a direct hit from a tropical storm survived exactly that after finding itself directly in the path of last month's Hurricane Ivan, although many neighboring homes were completely destroyed. Designed by San Francisco?area architect Jonathan Zimmerman and Brigham Young University engineering professor Arnold Wilson, the "Dome Home," so named for its thin-shell concrete form, was built in 2003 on 16 pilings driven 17 feet into the barrier island on which it sits. The house's shape lets waves wash around it rather than knock it down, and it has breakaway stairs that yield to high water levels. Designed for 300-mile-an-hour winds and equipped with an emergency generator, the home was partly funded by a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant. Jamie Reynolds