When we began developing Scandinavian Domes, there was much we did not know.
We knew we liked the geodesic form and that its qualities made it both beautiful and structurally interesting. We knew we wanted to build in timber and create something rooted in the nature of northern Sweden. And we knew our ambition was larger than building a handful of domes. If Scandinavian Domes was to create jobs at Granberget, we would eventually need to make the same product time after time.
But the route there was far harder to foresee.
For several years, we built models and later full-scale prototypes at home in Granberget. We calculated the geometry, sawed hundreds of timber components, tried different types of polycarbonate, tapes and silicone, and changed the design when something did not work as expected. The domes stood outdoors through winters in Jämtland and warm summer days. After heavy rain, we could walk out, check a seal or notice a detail that should be done differently next time.
It was an excellent way to learn.
Over time, though, we also began to see its limitations.
A prototype standing a few metres from your own workshop is still in a fairly sheltered world. If something needs changing, the machines are nearby. If a part is missing, we can make another. If we want to check something, we can step outside and look.
A commercial dome will not live like that.
It will be made at Granberget, packed, transported perhaps hundreds of kilometres and assembled somewhere we do not control the conditions. Other people will use it, perhaps in ways we never imagined. It must withstand rain, wind, snow, cold and heat—and keep doing so long after we have left.
As we approached a product we could actually sell, the questions multiplied rather than diminished.
How do you transport an entire dome in practice? How long does assembly take away from Granberget? Which tools and aids must come with us? Which details are unnecessarily complicated? What happens to the seals after a winter? How does ventilation work when people really use the room? How do the fireplace and chimney perform over time? And what problems will our customers discover that have never occurred to us?
There was really only one way to find out.
We needed to send the domes out into the real world.
That idea became the Scandinavian Domes Pilot Programme 2026–2027.
Instead of going directly from our own prototypes to a broader commercial launch, we decided to build three pilot domes. They would be placed with three different pilot customers and followed for a full year—through autumn, winter, spring and summer.
What mattered was that they would not be at home with us.
We wanted different places, different people and different conditions. The pilot customers would use the domes for real and work with us to follow how the structure performed over time. Through regular reviews, we would gather experience, discuss problems and document improvements.
The pilot programme would therefore test more than the dome. It would test the whole of Scandinavian Domes.
Production at Granberget. Packing. Transport. Assembly. Documentation. Working with the customer. Materials. The fireplace. Use. Service. And our ability to spot a problem at a pilot site and feed the solution back into the next dome.
There was another reason we wanted to do this now.
As the pilot programme began to take shape, our production was changing fundamentally. The manual workshop where the first domes had emerged had been joined by digital design and a five-axis CNC machine. We could shape timber with a precision and repeatability we had previously only dreamed of.
So the pilot domes would be the first serious test not only of a new version of the dome, but of the way we intend to build future domes.
If a component did not fit at a pilot site, the question was bigger than how to fix it there and then. We needed to understand why it did not fit, change the model or process back at Granberget and make sure the next component was better.
In that way, each pilot could improve the next.
And each lesson could become part of future production.
A pilot programme also involves something that can feel unfamiliar when developing a new product.
You must be willing to show that you do not know everything.
It would have been easier to keep developing the domes behind closed doors until we felt everything was finished. But there is a limit to what you can learn on your own. Eventually, the design must meet people who were not involved in creating it.
For us, a good pilot is therefore not a dome in which nothing needs changing.
A good pilot is a dome that helps us discover what should change before we start building many.
That is also why the pilot period lasts a full year. A dome in northern Sweden needs to experience more than a few beautiful summer days. Autumn rain must come. Temperatures must fall. Snow must settle. Spring must warm the structure again, and the summer sun must raise the temperature inside.
Only then will we begin to see the whole picture.
Once we had made the decision, the next question remained.
Who would want to take part?
We needed three pilot customers who wanted more than a dome and understood what a pilot project meant. People and organisations willing to use it, live with it, tell us what worked and what did not—and help us make the next version better.
We did not know how much interest there would be when we invited applications.
It turned out we need not have worried.
As the applications arrived, we encountered a wealth of people, places and ideas we could never have imagined ourselves. In the end, we had almost a hundred expressions of interest and a much harder problem than finding three pilots:
How do you choose three when so many could teach us something?
That became the next part of the journey—and was far harder than we had expected.
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.