By Patricia Leigh Brown / Source: nytimes

DOMES

DAVIS, Calif. — The trill of panpipes from a yurt wafted across the mulch hillocks of the Domes, a 1970s experiment in communal housing in which students live in igloolike fiberglass domes and snuggle up in snow-white interiors of plastic foam.

Although plenty of campuses offer specialized housing — often reserved for vegans, teetotalers, athletes and other like-minded souls — it is probably safe to say that there is no place quite like the Domes, an early venture into sustainable living at the University of California, Davis. The complex of 14 tiny domes (elevation: 52 feet, population: 28-plus) is officially named Baggins End, after the Tolkien characters.

Handcrafted signs by “Domies” enjoin visitors to take their time and “make a new friend” while meandering through the Domes’ gardens. There, amid fruit trees, scampering chickens and rows of spinach, they can marvel at a gazebo made from bicycle wheels, a metal Triassic flying reptile in a tree and a multicolored apiary that sums up the Domes’ philosophy: “Just bee.”

Clarke Love, a junior civil engineering major and one of many green-thumbed Domies, relaxes by making prickly pear jam from scratch and “life force smoothies” from fresh collard greens, dandelions, figs, mint and whatever else is in season on the Domes’ four acres. Her gardens rely on recycled water from the Dirty Laundry Lounge, the Domes’ outdoor laundromat.

Like the other Domes, which have sleeping lofts with vertiginous steps, the one Ms. Love shares with her domemate, Delaney McKinney, has a “sweet spot” — an acoustical effect similar to the “whispering gallery” in the United States Capitol, in which sounds are curiously amplified. “When it rains, there is such a beautiful sound, like a rain-stick,” Ms. Love said of her dome. “You feel in tune with nature,” she added. “For me, it’s pretty holy.”

Rituals at the Domes seem drawn from an earlier era. Students meet for potluck dinners four nights a week in the yurt, which functions as a circular town square. Community decisions at weekly meetings are made by consensus. New Domies are required to attend an “anti-oppression workshop” to prepare for the rigors of a cooperative existence in which even a decision about whether to have a party is discussed ad nauseam and then voted on.

In a world full of squares, Domies prefer the round. “There are no right angles here,” said Lucas Hill, a senior majoring in sustainable agriculture and food systems. “It makes you think creatively.”

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