Archinect - News

Holing up in hoity-toity hovels: doomsday architecture for the super-wealthy

2017-01-24T17:25:00-05:00

Trump is President, the climate is chaos, and the wealth gap is starting to qualify as its own national canyon. So if you've got vats of money and are afraid of all the people who don't, what do you do? Build doomsday architecture to survive the collapse of society! In this piece for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos investigates the luxury bunkers of folks who realize that they'll probably need to plan to take the family of the pilot of their private jet with them, for, you know, maintenance issues (sigh):

Hall led me through the garage, down a ramp, and into a lounge, with a stone fireplace, a dining area, and a kitchen to one side. It had the feel of a ski condo without windows: pool table, stainless-steel appliances, leather couches. To maximize space, Hall took ideas from cruise-ship design. We were accompanied by Mark Menosky, an engineer who manages day-to-day operations. While they fixed dinner—steak, baked potatoes, and salad—Hall said that the hardest part of the project was susta...

Subculture of Americans prepares for civilization's collapse

2012-01-23T15:08:00-05:00

Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a "survival center," complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon. "I think this economy is about to fall apart," she said.

ApocaLego: Building end-times with plastic bricks

2011-11-02T15:55:00-04:00

Kevin "Crimson Wolf" Fedde (work pictured above) builds some of the most detailed and creative ApocaLego dioramas around. Kevin, a college student from Ft. Collins, CO, layers his models with intricate detail and mini shorelines, making them seem almost plausible. While he revels in the requisite "Mad Max" skirmishes, I love how he also shows how people's shanties look like. This is how they scrounge electricity. Those details are far more interesting for me than any battle.