The first images of a housing community proposed by Kanye West have emerged as the construction of prototype homes appears to be under way in Calabasas, California, not far from where West lives. The dome structures, which were reportedly influenced by the homes on the planet Tatooine in Star Wars, will eventually be used as low-income housing if all goes as planned, West said in a recent interview.

West first outlined his concept for the community in another interview in April last year, boasting, characteristically, that he intended to change the face of real-estate development as we know it.

“I’m going to be one of the biggest real-estate developers of all time, what Howard Hughes was to aircrafts and what Henry Ford was to cars, just the relationships I have with architects, my understanding of space and sacred proportions, just this new vibe, this new energy,” he said. “We’re gonna develop cities.”

The domes, which sit on a 300-acre plot West owns, stand about 50ft high, it has been reported, and ideas for the architecture are said to have been drawn “from every period of man’s existence on earth”.

According to TMZ, West has said the concept for the community is one “he believes will break the barriers that separate classes … namely, the rich, the middle class and the poor”.

In the recent Forbes interview with West the writer Zack O’Malley was given sight of the structures. O’Malley reported: “He tells me they could be used as living spaces for the homeless, perhaps sunk into the ground with light filtering in through the top. We stand there in silence for several minutes considering the structures before walking back down to his lurking Lamborghini and zooming off into the night.”

Calabasas, a city in Los Angeles county, is an especially wealthy area, home to numerous celebrities including the Kardashian Wests, Miley Cyrus and Drake.

Earlier this year it was reported West pulled out of Coachella when the festival said it would not be able to construct a dome to encompass his performance. The dome, organizers said, would have displaced too many portable toilets.