No Comments »

The Architecture of Despair: Nuclear “Protection” from Kacey Wong

• Tweet

• Tweet

This bare bones post-disaster housing in a lead suitcase that can be rolled through the bleak post-apocalyptic wreckage is supposedly intended to protect people from radiation after a nuclear disaster. But the absurdity of the idea is intended to make us question the idea of having to protect ourselves from our inventions in the first place.

The lead house would provide merely the most bare-bones essential housing for a solitary survivor of nuclear disaster. Just a bed that can be rolled through the wreckage of a former habitat.

Designed for one person and made of lead to stop radiation exposure, the suit acts as a mobile home that unfolds to create a bed.

Decidedly depressing. But Wong’s evident despair does not stop him from confronting and solving the design issues implicit in such a structure, like figuring out just how the solar panels would fold open to make electricity in the feeble post-nuclear winter.

A solar panel on top is enough to power an elemental electrical device its inhabitant would need to stay abreast of radiation alerts.

“People often have blind faith towards the machine and think they could resolve all of nature’s problems”, says Wong. “Unfortunately, this time our machines turned around and destroyed the most important life supplies in nature, polluting water, food, and the air”.

Wong’s disturbing worst case scenario architecture has added poignancy, coming as it does in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and if the outraged comments on his previous work is any indication, this piece too will be offensive to many.

Via Dezeen