In Northern Michigan, a Geodesic Dome Offers Visitors an Escape Pod From Daily Life

Lauren Blanford, owner of the Lost Woods glamping and event center in Northern Michigan, was looking for something unique to add to her site. She had started the compound with some spacious canvas tents and later added an A-frame cabin. But in an area where ski slopes and snowshoe trails abound, Lauren wanted a singular attraction that no one else in the area had, one that could be inhabited year-round. The answer: a geodesic dome, equipped with heat for the colder months, that welcomed its first guests last March. It was a "major level up," she says.

The dome itself was ordered from Polish company FDomes. The primary variable was the amount of insulation that should be included, and Lauren needed all she could get. "The cost of the insulation was about the same as what we paid for the structure," she notes.

For the interior, she turned to local design firm SpotLab. Lauren was impressed by SpotLab’s ability to blend order and creativity in small spaces. At a little under 400 square feet, the dome needed to pack a lot into a tiny area, but in a coherent and tranquil way befitting the rustic-luxury-with-bear-spray environs. The first thing SpotLab designed and built was a bathroom and kitchenette unit, consolidating the most complicated and space-hungry programs and letting everything else orbit around them. The self-contained volume felt like a "big custom piece of cabinetry," says cofounder Zeb Burge, who focuses on the construction side of the design-build company.