For almost three years, we had worked on Scandinavian Domes without really telling the outside world what we were doing.
We had studied the mathematics, developed our own CAD model, built small models and two full-scale prototypes, tested materials and exposed the structures to more than a year of Jämtland weather. At the same time, we had continued building the business at Granberget.
By then, it was no longer just a few conventional woodworking machines and a great deal of manual work. We had invested in a modern workshop that was becoming increasingly digital, with an industrial five-axis CNC machine from Felder at the heart of production. It allowed us to carry the precision of our digital models into manufacturing and produce timber components with far greater consistency than before.
After three years of development, we began to feel ready for the next step.
But we still had no public website, no Scandinavian Domes social media accounts and almost no external communication about the project.
Then the local sawmill Höglands Såg & Hyvleri got in touch.
They had heard that things were happening at Granberget and asked if they could hold a forestry evening for their local customers at our site in early June. The timing could hardly have been better. We decided that the evening would be the moment we opened the doors for the first time and began telling people what we had been working on.
In preparation, we completed the first version of scandinaviandomes.com. We also produced a printed magazine about the journey, the domes, the craftsmanship and the place—something visitors could take home and read afterwards.
On 4 June, around sixty people came up to Granberget.
Höglands spoke about its business, and a student presented a thesis on how birch prices had changed over the previous hundred years. We had the chance to tell our story, show the workshop and its machines, and let a larger group of people experience the domes in person for the first time.
We made the evening as professional as we could, with microphones, a PA system, a projector and a large screen so everyone could see and hear the presentations. But perhaps the most important part was much simpler.
We held an Open Dome.
Visitors could walk in, sit down and feel what the space was like.
For us, the evening was a milestone. After almost three years of development in relative quiet, we suddenly had an audience.
A few days later, we took the next step. We shared photos of the project in a couple of relevant Facebook groups and said we were looking for a small number of commercial pilot customers. The images included photographs we had taken of the domes at Granberget, among them the dome beneath the northern lights.
The idea behind the pilot phase was simple. The next domes would not remain at our site. They would move to other places, be used by other people and allow us to continue developing them under real-world conditions.
The response came much faster than we had expected.
In a short time, we received nearly 100 expressions of interest from across northern Sweden.
After almost three years of working quietly, we had our first clear response from the outside world: the interest was there.
It also marked the beginning of the next chapter in the Scandinavian Domes story.
How the pilot programme took shape—and what we are learning with our first pilot customers—is the subject of our next series, The Pilots.
During the summer of 2026, we selected three pilot partners from almost 100 applications from Sweden and abroad. The pilot year has now begun with installations in Hemavan, Åre and Borgafjäll.
Under sommaren 2026 valde vi ut tre pilotkunder bland närmare 100 intresseanmälningar från Sverige och andra länder. Pilotåret har nu inletts med installationer i Hemavan, Åre och Borgafjäll.
Tillsammans med våra pilotkunder kommer vi under det kommande året att vidareutveckla varje del av Scandinavian Domes – från materialval och hantverk till logistik, installation och långsiktig hållbarhet – inför den bredare marknadslanseringen 2027.