A Dome for Winooski?

A far-out scheme could reduce the city's heating bills

Like other New England cities and towns, Winooski (pop. 7,500), Vt., has every reason to fret about rising heating costs. During the long winter, temperatures there frequently plummet to —20° F or lower. But some Winooskians think they may have found a way to beat their rising oil bills. They are seriously looking into the idea of covering the town with a dome to reduce the escape of heat. Says the dome's chief proponent, Community Development Director Mark Tigan: "It would be the ultimate in Yankee ingenuity."

The idea of Winooski's dome began as a flight of fancy a few months ago during a meeting called by the town fathers to discuss energy needs. But as Tigan, 32, thought more about the idea, he decided it was worthwhile pursuing seriously. Sounding out officials in Washington, he found them most receptive; they suggested that Winooski apply formally to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for a grant to study the feasibility of the dome.

When Tigan's dome lobbying became known, some New Englanders were openly scornful. The Free Press in neighboring Burlington asked how, for example, overheating could be prevented in summer as the sun beat down on the dome. Tigan shrugged off the criticism, pointing out that domes had been successfully used to cover part of the U.S. base at the South Pole, airplane hangars in Saudi Arabia, and a housing development in Alberta, Canada. By his reckoning, the dome could reduce residential heating bills alone by as much as 90%, a saving of $3.5 million.

Tigan has no inkling yet of such details as whether the dome would be inflatable or rigid, what it would be made of, how air would be circulated, or even roughly how much it might cost. An artist's rendering commissioned by the town shows a structure about 200 ft. high at its center (enough to clear the town's tallest building, eleven stories high), covering a square mile of Winooski; it is transparent on its southern side, where there are also solar panels to catch the sun's rays, and becomes gradually opaque on the northern exposure. The principal entry points are two half-buried tubes that would serve as the major cross streets. Travel inside the dome would be by electric cars or monorail—to avoid lethal accumulations of automobile exhaust. Still, Tigan admits the project's "human dimensions" must be explored. One member of the city council, which last month approved a request for $55,000 in federal money to make the feasibility study, wondered how residents would feel about no longer being able to do cross-country skiing from their front doors.

Despite such practical questions, Winooski's dome is stirring widespread interest. Tigan has been besieged with requests for radio and television interviews. He has also had an indirect boost from Buckminster Fuller, father of the geodesic dome. Says Shoji Sadao, Fuller's partner in the New York architectural firm of Fuller & Sadao: "Maybe we're getting out of the realm where this is just a pipe dream or visionary, and slowly getting into the realm of the practical." Maybe.