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Kanye West's dome-shaped housing prototypes were demolished

There's No Place Like Dome

Kanye West's dome-shaped housing prototypes were demolished

The Calabasas domes in better times. (Courtesy Los Angeles County Public Works)

Less than a month after news broke that Kanye West’s futuristic affordable housing project might face the wrecking ball, most of the Star Wars-reminiscent structures have been torn down.

TMZ reported that three of the four dome-shaped prototypes, located on the 300-acre wooded plot that Kanye West and Kim Kardashians call home in Calabasas, California, were fully taken down as of yesterday after failing to comply with building codes set forth by the Los Angeles County Public Works. The project was originally slated to be shut down by this Sunday, September 15, if West’s team didn’t get proper construction permits for the buildings, and it seems that a trio of the homes were taken down ahead of the deadline. The remaining dome will reportedly also be demolished before then as well.

The prototypes were part of the rapper-slash-designer-slash-producer’s grand vision to build an egalitarian community of sustainable homes, according to a Forbes writer who toured the property last month, in the style of the Tatooine settlements that debuted in the first Star Wars film. The four tall, rounded huts that West built near his Calabasas home, featured wooden frames of various sizes with holes cut in the top for natural light. Each structure was semi-sunken into the ground and included a concrete foundation. 

According to TMZ, the state inspector who came by twice to see the homes after receiving construction noise complaints from surrounding neighbors (construction crews were working on weekend days when they shouldn’t have been) said since the concrete bases were installed, it suggested the domes were more permanent rather than temporary and different permits were required. It’s unclear whether West will build the prototypes elsewhere or if he will move the remaining home to a property he just bought in Wyoming. 

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