Parasitic Housing Built Upon the Old Order
All images via Inhabitat
This return to cave-like cliff dwellings is inspired by Brazil's teeming populations of shanty towns, or favelas. As the current wave of tall and ultra-tall buildings rises and subsides, humans in depressed economies will find it too expensive to afford the maintenance required to keep the buildings functioning. But they may have a use -- providing neo-cavemen rooms with a view.
Like cliffside cavemen in the past, the neo-cavemen may find living high above the teeming masses and ground-level predators, to be safer.
Nations with average population IQs below 90 -- and without a market dominant high-IQ minority to run things -- will lose the ability to sustain advanced technologies with the coming anarchy. The high tech infrastructure still remaining after such societies collapse will be scavenged and parasitised as needed, as pockets of humanity across the third world revert to the caves.
Images via Inhabitat
Inspired by favelas or Brazilian shanty towns, the structures are box-like homes that can be attached onto the facades of other buildings. Reyes’ concept is unique in that it actually enlists able-bodied survivors to assist with the implementation of the shelters – a cool idea, since it empowers them to take action instead of simply sitting around, waiting for help. Reyes envisions that the pre-constructed structures could be airlifted by helicopter to sites where they are needed and then guided into place with the help of survivors. They “clip” onto building facades using leverage.
Each shelter would contain beds, lighting, storage and a skylight and be made of recycled materials from local construction sites. There would also be attachments for solar energy, water purification and organic farming. Finding muse in the famous favela paintings of Rio de Janeiro, Reyes also hopes that survivors will be able to use the walls of their shelters as canvases once they are settled in, using painting as a creative outlet as they begin the process of healing. _Inhabitat
Nations with average population IQs below 90 -- and without a market dominant high-IQ minority to run things -- will lose the ability to sustain advanced technologies with the coming anarchy. The high tech infrastructure still remaining after such societies collapse will be scavenged and parasitised as needed, as pockets of humanity across the third world revert to the caves.
Images via Inhabitat
Labels: coming anarchy, shelter
posted by al fin at 6:39 am
3 Comments:
This is impractical. High-rise buildings that are not properly maintained become a safety hazard over time. Even the structural integrity decreases over time. Unmaintained high-rise structures will not be structurally sound to hang this kind of parasitic structures off of. Also, the source article shows the parasitic structures being delivered in place by helicopter. Helicopters are expensive to rent. They, too, need to be maintained as well.
The favelas are better off being built on solid ground away from decaying high-rises.
Large concrete buildings like that will only last a several decades without maintenance. And if the building is abandoned, why not just use the inside? If it's structurally stable enough to hold one of these, it's surely stable enough to have someone inside.
The challenge is to take an unconventional idea as a springboard, to achieve a truly original and useful concept.
Anyone can shoot an idea down. But can you take the idea and make it not only more outrageous, but better?
As for the lifespan of a well designed and built steel-concrete high rise, it depends upon a lot of factors -- both internal and external.
Newer, self-healing and self-cleaning exterior surfaces, are likely to reduce the amount of maintenance necessary for steel concrete buildings to last centuries or longer.
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