Smiles and hugs were the preferred greeting on Saturday as original occupants of the Domes at UC Davis had a reunion for the 45th anniversary of the communal housing development.

For the unfamiliar, the Domes are an iconic piece of history, having been built almost entirely by students as an experiment in community living. The hemispheres sit on the western end of Orchard Park on campus; there are 14 total — one has been converted to an office space and the other 13 each house two UCD students.

During a tour led by Dome resident and sixth-year student Jake Parkhurst, the original “Domies” were able to peek into each one — all have a number, from 1 to 14 — fondly remembering who lived where.

As the gathered former residents wandered the property, they marveled at the trees everywhere, and recalled being able to see amazing sunsets from the property. Ellery Sorkin, one of the founders of the Domes, said that there had originally been a “field of barley here,” but luckily, “the university wasn’t committed to barley.”

As one walks through the acre that the Domes sit on, it’s a wonder that it ever got green-lighted by UCD administrators.

Sorkin, who came up from Southern California for the reunion, said he credits the Domes’ existence to the fact that “We were only asking for a small amount of money,” and after a short-lived sit-in at, he believes, then-Chancellor Jim Meyer’s office, the students were given permission.

“We weren’t yelling about politics or to stop the (Vietnam) war,” Sorkin said, but he recalls some donors coming into the office with Meyer after lunch time, which might have sped up the approval process for the students.

Longtime Davis resident Clay Brandow remembers that the university was planning its new medical school at that time, and “they were really focused on that.” So when students showed up in Meyer’s office, Brandow said there was an attitude of “get those hippies out of there, we have important business this afternoon.

“That’s my theory on how they accomplished the agreement with the university … and we zipped under the radar,” he said.

Brandow, an original founder and resident, also thinks that the Domes had another reprieve from demolition after they’d been closed in 2011. “They possibly made their way through again because of the pepper spray mess and not wanting negative press,” he said.

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Brandow gave some perspective about what it was like getting the Domes up and running.

Students were able to convince Ron Swenson — the only contractor who was willing, Brandow said — to design the structures. Swenson decided on domes of polyurethane-insulated fiberglass, measuring approximately 24 feet in diameter, each with a kitchen and a bathroom. Contractors volunteered time and materials, Brandow explained, and students and volunteers from the community took on the task of building them.

For a more detailed explanation of how the Domes were built, watch Clay Brandow’s 2015 TedX talk at the Mondavi Center:

There were, of course, difficulties during the building process, causing move-in day to be pushed back well past the beginning of the quarter. Students were pretty desperate to take up residence.

“We hadn’t finished the places,” Brandow said, “and we had open trenches all over the place.” He also recalled that their smoke detectors were hooked up to alarms that notified the fire department, “So every time we burned toast, the fire department showed up.”

The university, he said, “brought trailers because it wasn’t livable yet” at Baggins End, the more formal name of the Domes. “But we started living in them during that time anyway,” Brandow admitted.

After settling in, “Everyone put in their own second levels,” Brandow explained, “so they are all different.” He’s toured the Domes over the years, and has noticed that “more students have closed off different areas, like sleeping areas.” (Bathrooms were always closed off, he added.)

Brandow also said that during his time, between 1972-75, “We started off mostly cooking for ourselves.” Soon, though, groups were formed and potlucks were common. “A few of us formed a cooking club,” he said, “and we all cooked one day a week, Monday through Thursday.”

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The Domes have always been low-income housing — rent for each Dome occupant is $400 now — but as Brandow pointed out, “You have to be able to put up with quite a bit of rustic-ness” to live there.

And it’s not just about a reasonable cost of living; it’s important to want to be part of the community experience.

Living there has always meant wanting to participate in many aspects of communal living, such as gardening, group meals, reducing one’s ecological footprint and learning from each other.

Brandow, who met his wife, Brooke, at the Domes — “She was one of the first people to move in who wasn’t a builder,” Brandow said — called himself a “group-living junkie.”

His first residence at UCD was in Malcolm Hall, run by the sociology department. “It was a living-learning experiment,” Brandow said.

In his sophomore year, he helped establish the Pierce co-op on campus. “I just wanted to belong to something,” Brandow said. And the Domes were a logical offshoot of this.

“What I’m really impressed with,” Brandow said, “is the fact that after we built the structures, we were trying to build some sort of community.”

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What’s it like living in the Domes today?

On this warm August day, the temperature inside the Domes isn’t exactly refreshing.

Parkhurst said that three of the domes have air conditioning now, but funding has kept the community from being able to add more. To end up with one of those three Domes, Parkhurst said, is a matter of “seniority and/or luck.”

Sierra Lewandowski, fourth-year UCD student and resident of Dome No. 5, said that “college is a great time to … unlearn habits and ‘isms’ ” and other negative traits. The communal setting of the Domes unites the residents, and teaches them to work together for the good of all.

She also explained that new residents are chosen by the community after applications are submitted by would-be Domies. There are openings quarterly, Lewandowski explained, although most come available at the beginning of the school year. The current Dome residents vote on who shall be given available spots.

Originally managed by UCD Housing, since 2011 the Domes have been part of Solar Community Housing Association, which was established in 1979 by former residents of UCD housing co-ops.

In 2012, UCD wrote a brief retrospective on The Domes that can be read at http://bit.ly/2vAXQP0

— Reach Tanya Perez at [email protected] or 530-747-8082. Follow her on Twitter at @EnterpriseTanya