The DOME is a modular, unitized system specifically designed for interim and emergency housing. It combines all the essential furnishings commonly found in these facilities, including: a bed with room for storage underneath, a lockable wardrobe, partitions, access to an outlet, and an optional fabric canopy to enclose the DOME for additional privacy and safety. Within the DOME module, there is room to stand, sit, move and place a medium-sized kennel that accommodates up to a 30-pound pet.
Our Process
There was no product on the market that we found that was intentionally designed for interim housing that addressed all these challenges while providing a dignified, comfortable and safe space for a homeless neighbor.
The City of Los Angeles plans to create 1,500 new beds by July 2020. In addition to some of the existing beds that need to be replaced, the need and urgency for new beds asks for a furniture system that can be built and delivered rapidly and be cost effective while addressing the needs of the guests and the facilities.
existing conditions
Our Story
The 2019 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count puts the number of sheltered homeless at 21,631—a little more than one for every four of LA County's 58,936 estimated homeless population. We believe that any problem that is experienced by nearly 60,000 people is a complex issue that requires an “all of the above” approach. There is no silver bullet to a condition that involves so many, in a place as multi-cultural, multi-national and multi-lingual as Los Angeles.
Through our research and efforts, we found that interim housing programs often rely on furniture designed for higher education and detention facilities. Sleeping units were commonly furnished with a bed and lockable storage and depending on space and budget may include a desk and chair, partitions for privacy/safety, and access to an outlet for charging an electronic device or a reading light. Every facility we visited had a different approach for deciding bed heights, partition heights, combating bed bugs, maintenance, privacy, safety, storage, lighting, and space for couples.
How does it work?
Each individual DOME unit requires two wardrobe ends that are anchored by an extra-long twin bed in between. The wardrobe unit is 6-feet, 2-inches wide by 6-feet high with a 2-foot depth.
The DOME collapses to a tiny footprint for efficient storage and shipping, bringing initial installation costs down. Operators have flexibility to add or remove additional units in times of surge as needed. All components are contained within a single unit without loose elements that can get lost in storage.
Installation
32 units fit on 53 foot trailer
Layout
News and Events
Bridging Realities:
Housing Relief for Homelessness
Panel at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum
January 12, 2020
Dome:
Sleep Pod for Interim Housing
Exhibition at the A+D Architecture
and Design Museum
December 04, 2019 - January 12, 2020
is the product from a collaborative team that is working to solve Los Angeles' problem of homelessness by providing solutions for interim and emergency housing.
Trademark 2019 DOME. All Rights Reserved. This product is Patent Pending.
Our LA studio is passionate about supporting positive change in our community. In 2017, we made housing a central part of our social responsibility initiative reaching out to local municipalities and organizations that focus on low income and supportive housing. Today, we are proud to be working with the City of Los Angeles along with some of LA’s most dedicated supportive housing providers including Clifford Beers Housing and The Weingart Center.
Perkins and Will Los Angeles first became involved with housing by attending community meetings in support of affordable and supportive housing developments. Our team heard first-hand from people living on the streets, community members, and builders. We toured facilities and met with providers to better understand how they operate and the services they provide. Through this process, we came to recognize that a lot of the housing built for low-income and homeless populations is developed with a “triage mentality”. Scarce resources and a sense of duty become a reason to limit design thinking. Here is the place where we see the best opportunity for us to contribute. We believe that everyone should have a beautiful place to live. It’s our business to be inventive, solve problems, and create places focused on user experience. This is the approach our LA studio brings to the buildings that serve our most vulnerable LA residents.
At Shield, building is in our DNA. With a passion for creating highly crafted, beautiful solid surface products and an insatiable curiosity to create better widgets, this is just our beginning. Shield is not just a product. We are changing the expectation of manufacturing in America. It’s more than making a better box; we are manufacturing inspiration.
What Sets
Apart
This is a new kind of product line. Simply put, it is a process of making. Our system of building and connecting allows us to craft nearly any size box...standard. We build with a better material, so we’ve developed several patents that give us a faster, more efficient method of construction.
Building a Better Box
Traditionally building with solid surface was prohibitively expensive, so we patented several construction methods. All our products benefit from our unique folding process that gives you exact dimensions faster and more efficiently than anyone else. We precision-fold solid surface to exact dimensions, allowing us to build a box accurately…and faster than anyone else.
Custom is the New Standard
Custom manufacturing has typically been expensive because everyone starts from scratch each time. Our proprietary folding system doesn’t care how wide or tall you want your lockers. We build a better box, and if you want it 22.5” x 72.25,” we believe that shouldn’t cost you more than standard sizes.