Panoramic view of Ouakam, Dakar—the district with the highest concentration of the city’s remaining bubble houses. In the background, the African Renaissance Monument, a key urban landmark of the capital, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
Dakar’s last “bubble houses” represent the culmination of a season of architectural experimentation that flourished between the 1950s and 1970s, where urgent housing needs intersected with innovative construction techniques. Realized from the Airform system developed by California-based architect Wallace Neff—an inflatable pneumatic formwork combined with reinforced steel mesh and a sprayed skin of Gunite/ferrocement—these thin concrete domes granted rapid building sites, minimal use of materials, and an early attempt at obtaining bioclimatic comfort: deep shade, thermal inertia, and natural ventilation.
At its peak, Dakar was home to one of the largest concentrations of these domes in the world, if not the largest. At the end of the 1970s, there were around 1,200 units. Today, only a small number remain—still inhabited, absorbed into new volumes, in ruin or partly destroyed—and they risk disappearing. Among the primary factors threatening their survival are, above all, strong real estate pressure and building speculation in favor of new multistory constructions. Over the years, the obsolescence of these experimental structures (small spaces, limited facilities) and the difficult and costly maintenance of their thin shells have often led to their demolition or drastic transformation. The absence of formal protection by state institutions or associations, partly due to a lack of awareness of their value among the population, who are often completely unaware of their existence or history, has therefore encouraged replacement and demolition rather than reuse.
This visual exploration was developed with a documentary approach to the reality of the last bubble houses surviving in the Senegalese capital, portraying the houses as they appeared at the time of each visit. The aim was twofold: to register the architectural and historical value of a rare thin-shell laboratory, and to offer a slice of daily life that reflects Dakar’s social as well as urban fabric. What emerges is a landscape of architectural survivals: a constellation of domes that, though marginal, testify to a possible alliance between form, climate, and use. The images propose a clear-eyed, non-nostalgic reading, treating the “bubbles” as fragile heritage and as a source of reflection on accessible living, low-impact rapid construction, and the reuse of architectural heritage.
One of the last of Dakar's bubble houses in the Ouakam neighborhood, now completely surrounded by other buildings, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
“Papis,” one of the oldest residents of Ouakam in Dakar, portrayed in front of the bubble house that has belonged to his family since it was built in the 1950s. Theirs is among the few remaining bubble houses that retain the original interior layout almost untouched, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
A boy watches TV inside the bubble house where he lives with his family in Ouakam, Dakar. His bubble house is one of the few that retain a near-original interior layout, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
A boy at the window of his family’s bubble house in Ouakam. Many of these homes are demolished or abandoned, partly because a single dome is difficult to inhabit for typically large Senegalese families, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
Everyday life in the courtyard just outside one of Dakar’s last bubble houses in the Ouakam neighborhood. This area still holds the largest number of these thin concrete domes in the Senegalese capital, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
Courtyard among some of Dakar’s remaining bubble houses in Ouakam, the district that still preserves the highest concentration of those thin concrete domes, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
A resident of Ouakam plays with his dog on the roof of his family home; in the background, several bubble houses. Ouakam is the Dakar district where the largest concentration of these ferrocement domes survives, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
Top view of the entrance to a bubble house in Ouakam, Dakar. Over the years, new buildings have grown all around, and many of the remaining domes are now embedded in the urban fabric, nearly invisible from the street, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
Surrounded by new buildings erected in various phases over the years, there are a few bubble houses, still connected by narrow spaces that nevertheless allow for daily activities and socializing among residing families, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
View of a room in a bubble house that retains its original layout. On a circular base, the intersection of two low, slightly off-center partitions creates two bedrooms, a living/entry area, and a bathroom set in the smaller corner. Natural ventilation was provided by openings in the concrete shell combined with a vent at the apex of the dome, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
In Ouakam, a bubble house was partly demolished to make space for a new construction, now lying completely abandoned, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
A teacher living in the Ouakam neighborhood conducts remote classes near her family’s bubble house, one of the last remaining in Dakar, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
A vacant plot preserves what remains of a bubble house: the circular base of the dome, exposed after partial demolition. The residual perimeter makes the interior’s true scale legible, surprisingly compact, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
A young boy plays in front of one of the bubble houses that remain in Ouakam, the neighborhood of Dakar with the highest concentration of these domes. In this area of the Senegalese capital, the bubbles were often built in groups of four, with a fifth one in the centre divided into four sections for the kitchens. The individual bubble houses contained two small bedrooms, a very small bathroom and a living area with entrance, October 2025. © ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography.
