Fu-Tung Cheng designed this concrete home currently under construction on the island of Culebra off the coast of Puerto Rico, smack dab in an area known as Hurricane Alley. Because of its location on a wind-swept mountainside, the house has to be built to withstand hurricane forces and concrete was the logical choice.
Cheng built 20 custom wooden forms that were 8 feet long and 30 inches high and lined them with laminate to create the super-smooth, 160-foot-long curved exterior wall. The soaring roof and most of the house is cast-in-place concrete construction. The rest of the house was cast with more conventional forms, he says, and also contains concrete block.
