Our Story

Aurelien SAMIE
Jan 6
2 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Why Domes?

DDS was born from a passion for innovative design, organic shapes and immersive environments but more importantly,

It was born from a very practical question:

Why does creating remarkable spaces take so long, cost so much, and require so many compromises?

After more than 20 years working in hospitality — from boutique hotels to large-scale destinations — one pattern kept repeating. The ambition was always high. The creativity was there. But execution was slow, heavy, and often constrained by construction timelines, regulations, budgets, and logistics.

The gap between intention and reality was often too wide.

The limits of traditional development

In hospitality, retail, and experiential projects, time is not neutral. It affects costs, market relevance, seasonality, and return on investment.

Traditional construction is usually:

slow to deploy
rigid by design
difficult to adapt once built
disconnected from evolving uses

This makes experimentation risky and innovation expensive.

Yet the need for flexibility, differentiation, and experience-driven spaces has never been stronger.

A different starting point: modular architecture

Modular and prefabricated structures — domes, zomes, and other atypical systems — offer a radically different approach.

They are:

fast to install
reversible or relocatable
accessible in sites where conventional buildings are not
scalable and adaptable over time

But very early on, one thing became clear:a structure alone does not create value.

Without purpose, narrative, flow, and operational logic, even the most striking architecture remains empty.

Where DDS comes in

Dome Design Studio was created to bridge this gap.

Not as a dome supplier. Not as a traditional architecture firm.

But as a design studio focused on experience-driven modular spaces.

Our work sits at the intersection of:

modular architecture
experience design
operational reality

We design spaces that are not only beautiful, but usable, activable, and economically coherent.

Designing for use, not just for form

Every DDS project starts with questions, not shapes:

Who is this space for?
How will it be used, day to day?
What problem does it solve?
How does it generate value — experiential, operational, financial?

From there, we design:

the spatial layout
the guest or user journey
the atmosphere and scenography
the activation strategy
and the operational logic behind it

The result is a space that can be deployed quickly, adapted over time, and aligned with real-world constraints.

What we believe

We believe that exceptional spaces do not need to be permanent to be meaningful.We believe speed and quality are not opposites.We believe flexibility is becoming a competitive advantage.

And above all, we believe that experience is the true differentiator — architecture is only the tool.