Construction Diary: She Envisioned a Dome Home—Then Made It a Reality Outside Joshua Tree
Anastasiya Dudik’s high desert retreat experiments with organic architecture, down to the locally sourced boulders used for furniture.
Anastasiya Dudik’s high desert retreat experiments with organic architecture, down to the locally sourced boulders used for furniture.
Few in this life earn the right to brag that they’ve turned a pipe dream into waking reality. But among them is one Anastasiya Dudik, who recently built a dome-shaped home near Joshua Tree that she first envisioned years ago. In 2014, new to Los Angeles and working at a tech start-up, Anastasiya visited the desert for the first time and immediately got the bug to build. Almost weekly, she visited the area. "I would camp and drag my friends out in the middle of a heat wave," she says. "I had all these printouts of land for sale with no addresses and I would just go explore."
Things got real in 2021 when Anastasiya purchased a lot in Pioneertown. Her design experience only included one semester as an architecture major, but, inspired by organic architecture—ranging from the work of Anton Gaudí to the Green School in Bali—began building an otherworldly retreat overlooking the Sawtooths, a small mountain range on the south side of town. Here, Dudik shares how her vision for a dome in the desert came together, one visit after the next.
Based on a vision she’s had for years, Anastasiya Dudik designed a 1,700-square-foot, dome-shaped retreat in Pioneertown, California.
Photo by Brandon Stanley
A California Hata
I’m originally from Ukraine, and there you have your city house and then you have your hata, which is your weekend getaway. When I was growing up, every weekend my family would visit ours. When I moved to Los Angeles, Joshua Tree was my hata, in a way.
This project came about with me falling in love with Joshua Tree. The first time I visited the desert, I had this clear vision that a dome I had been wanting to build belonged in this otherworldly landscape. I started obsessing over it and driving out any weekend I could.
"My idea is that artists can stay there, be really close to town, and have this creative retreat that overlooks the Sawtooths," says Anastasiya.
Photo by Brandon Stanley
The dome is made of concrete reinforced with rebar.
Photo by Brandon Stanley
See the full story on Dwell.com: Construction Diary: She Envisioned a Dome Home—Then Made It a Reality Outside Joshua Tree
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