A dome-covered house is an example of designing sustainable buildings by learning from the optimized biological forms from the nature. The paper presents a 3-D thermal and air flow (3D-TAF) model that estimates the energy needs of a dome-covered house. The model is verified with CFD simulations under the COMSOL Multiphysics environment, experimental measurements and simulation results from similar structures published by other researchers. The use of the dome is expected to reduce the annual heating load of the house by 62.6%, compared with that of an isolated house located in Montreal at 45 degrees N latitude. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.