Air-formed domes

Place a balloon-like membrane on the ground. Cover it with wet reinforced concrete. Inflate the balloon. Let the concrete harden. Voilà - an indestructible concrete dome built in one day using 20% of the material and 20% of the energy of a normal home.

Instead of concrete, a skeleton with hinged joints can be laid out on the ground, and the balloon inflated underneath it to lift it into place. Various geometries for such a skeleton will be found in the patents below.

When building a home, you must fight gravity to get the roof and walls into place. This takes work. In fact, the basic struggle of construction is fighting gravity with muscle-power, ladders, pulleys and cranes. What if instead of all that, you use air to lift the walls and roof? Dante Bini has said that he can lift five tons of concrete using air pressure equal to puffing on a cigarette.

• http://binishells.com/technology.html
• http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/09/back-to-the-future-the-binishell-returns/

Dante Bini's patents

US patents last 20 years, so these are all in the public domain now

• Method for Erecting Structures, issued 1969
• Method for making domed skeletal structures of concrete, issued 1976
• Permanent weather covers, issued 1981
• Reticular spatial structure, issued 1989
• Expandable Reinforcement Structure, issued 1972
• Building construction and method utilizing modular components, issued 1987. Looks almost like an air-formed Hexayurt.

Other Patents

• Rigid building frame with inflatable member, Norman A. Boyce, issued 1984. A balloon is inflated to lift a flat-pack geodesic dome.
• Modular inflatable dome structure, Yen T. Huang, issued 1981.