A Bubbly House in Australia That Really Pops

Australia has been the fodder of many a Wednesday WTF. Sometimes good, sometimes well, it puts the “what” in “WTF.”

This week’s entry in the WTF annals falls somewhere in between. Meet The Bubble House – 11 domes, 20 rooms, three levels, and almost 3,500 square feet of space.

Yes, domes. Bubbles. It looks like either a cluster of bubbles at the end of a child’s bubble wand or a loogie, depending on whether you’re a fan or not.

The home was designed by architect Graham Birchall, who, according to his bio, “Between 1988 and 2017 Graham was contracted as the National Architectural Consultant for Ford Australia in Dealership design and upgrade. He travelled Australia Wide during these years and was involved in the design of over 200 Dealerships for Ford alone.”

I’m just going to leave that right there.

According to one Australian news report, it took a lot of math — “one dome took six pages of manual math calculation to work out,” Birchall said. The architect said that research into ferrocement — a mix of iron and cement — was part of the process of him getting his architecture degree. He then decided to try the process out in a home.

“It took 10 years to build, we built on weekends from Father’s Day 1983 to Father’s Day 1993,” he said. “There were a lot of challenges — we had to invent a lot of tools like a curved ladder to build it.”

The kitchen was built by a boat builder.

Like I said, you’re either going to love this house, or you’re gonna hate it — I doubt there is any in between for this one. But even if you hate it, you have to appreciate a 36-year labor of love and ferrocement.

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