Final Project: Property Portfolio
For our final project we created an architectural portfolio. Each of the residences included in the portfolio was designed in response to one of the existential crises covered in class. The project engages with the following contemporary challenges: nuclear annihilation, environmental devastation, artificial intelligence, and deadly pandemics. Each residence reflects the social, economic, political, and psychological realities associated with, or expected of, each existential challenge. The residences also consider the physical constraints posed by each threat. Ultimately, we hoped to create both realistic but imaginative designs. Some of the residences, in fact, are based on existing homes presently available for purchase. In order to address the inequality inherent to many of these threats, the creator of the portfolio is Doomsday International Realty (a parody of Sotheby’s International Realty). The catastrophic challenges faced by people day-to-day depend heavily on their wealth and nationality. Our portfolio aims to capture a fraction of the costly amenities needed to simply survive the next century. The project suggests that, for now, only the ultra-rich have access to the requisite resources.
By designing residential homes rather than commercial or institutional buildings, we focused largely on exploring the individual responses to existential threats. Traditionally, the ‘home’ has served as a gathering place, shelter, and sanctuary, which provided escape from the intrusiveness of the world. Our project seeks to understand how the physical and conceptual home evolves under the different pressures of doom and global demise.
The Nuclear homes, two luxury bunkers, were influenced by Rachel Bronson’s lecture as well as some extant nuclear-related housing projects, such as the Survival Condos in Concordia, Kansas, the Atlas Survival Shelters in Texas, the Europa One facility in Germany, and the Oppidum shelter in the Czech Republic. Bronson’s lecture and associated readings made clear that should doomsday arrive via Nuclear war, it would accelerate the actuality and impact of inequality. Historically, nuclear destruction has been considered a great equalizer. After all, nuclear weapons wipe out entire cities and countries indiscriminately. However, the existence of luxury nuclear bunkers (such as the ones included in our project) suggest that social and income disparities will not only survive doomsday- they will thrive. The listed homes included all the amenities essential to withstanding nuclear war such as non-perishable food, water filtration, decontamination showers, NBC air filtration systems, and a secure location deep underground. Additionally, the bunkers are meant to reflect the lavish lifestyles preferred by those who can afford this type of residence in the first place. Similarly to the upper-class cabins in Snowpiercer, the bunkers abound with excess and superfluous commodities such as an underground garden, cinema room, spa, and even private helipad. In the case of nuclear war, these luxury bunkers would represent the ultimate form of segregation: the rich relaxing in their below ground swimming pools while the less fortunate suffer radiation, climatic destruction, and mass starvation above.
The Climate Change home was based on Sivan Kartha’s lecture and the Arkup 75 which was designed by Waterstudio.NL. Due to a predicted increase in extreme weather events, any ‘climate change home’ must be both functional—hence the modern technology and luxurious living spaces—but also versatile. The retractable spuds, which allow the home to both be anchored in a city and free-floating, reflect the precariousness and transience of specific places and suggest that the success of the rich are independent of their survival. Indeed, the pacific islands Tuvalu, Kiribati and even certain U.S. cities along the coast may not exist by the end of this century. Likewise, the self-sustainable infrastructure of the home is indicative of the utter unpredictability of a world inundated with floods and the effects of climate change. Finally, we included the note about taxes (as the home is registered as a recreational vessel) to indicate that although our surroundings are irreversibly changing every day, some things, like the ultra-rich’s impulse to evade taxes, are a constant. Even while preparing for the end of the world, we envisioned finances would remain a top priority for ‘our’ clients.
Our Pandemic home was inspired by the movie Contagion as well as Suzette McKinney’s lecture about pandemics. In Contagion, the MEV-1 virus is extremely lethal, and people are afraid to go outside, let alone interact with one another. As a result, the key to our Pandemic home is the fact that the word ‘home’ evokes an image of safety and comfort. In order to accomplish that in a pandemic world, we wanted to ensure that the act of entering the home exuded safety and cleanliness above all else. For this reason, our Pandemic home included sanitization and sterilization areas and other quarantine accommodations. In addition, we wanted aspects of the home to reflect the changes in human behavior we have witnessed as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Amenities such as the Work From Home offices, 5G internet, workout rooms, antimicrobial surfaces, touch-less technology, and additional guest bedrooms reflect the need for a residence with increased versatility. As a nod to the trend of wealthier individuals leaving densely populated areas during the initial stages of the pandemic, the listed home was located in Southampton, NY, a location where many affluent New Yorkers relocated to throughout the past year. Similarly, the house’s excessively high asking price was intended to highlight the influence of inequality, even when it comes to surviving a pandemic.
Our AI/Cyber threat house was inspired by the movie I, Robot as well as Stuart Russell’s lecture about AI misalignment with human preferences. In I, Robot, there are three rules that the robots must follow: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law, and 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. These laws are very similar to the three rules that Russell enumerated in his presentation: 1. Robot goal: satisfy human preferences, 2. Robots are uncertain of human preferences, 3. Human behavior provides evidence of preferences. Both of these sets of rules focus on human’s wants and preferences, but the differences lie in that Russell’s rules provide a barrier to revolt since these robots are never certain and can always be turned off because they would not know for sure if what they’re doing is “right”. If unaligned AI robots and technology were to continue to develop, and humans keep consuming this technology, then dangerous AI would be present every in home. Indeed, we already see evidence of this trend through Amazon Alexa, or even the new AI-powered roomba vacuum (Vincent). Any AI ‘proof’ home would have to be completely isolated in the wilderness, as connection to electricity or technology would pose a threat under these circumstances. The sheer price of the home and the price of relocation demonstrates once again how inequality can sees into every doomsday challenge even if the home does not contain state-of-the-art technology. Protection is pricey.
Finally, the Lunar home, albeit a bit facetious (much like the rest of our project), is not all that far-fetched. In fact, it is based entirely on a project funded by the European Space Agency. Although the actual lunar capsules likely won’t be realized within the next couple of decades, they demonstrate an acute awareness of a need to seek housing beyond Earth and the seriousness of doom.
This project was created by Bea, Blake, and Laszlo. We came up with the concept of post-doomsday housing as a group after thinking about the way different people (particularly the very poor and very rich) would be impacted in the event of a catastrophe. Bea created the portfolio, rendered images for the houses, and came up with homes for Nuclear and Climate crises. Blake created a home for the event of a Cyber crisis, and Laszlo worked on Pandemic housing. As a group, we then reviewed one another’s home ideas and suggested additions and edits before finalizing the homes.
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