Architecture of doom: DIY planning for global catastrophe

Environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, global pandemic … does it feel like the world is ending? If you think Armageddon is near and are trying to get ready, you are not alone.

National Geographic Channel’s Doomsday Preppers— a reality TV series that profiles various “survivalists” readying themselves to survive a range of apocalyptic circumstances — is the network’s most-watched series. It has prompted a slew of similar programming such as Discovery Channel’s rival Doomsday Bunkers.

Of course, even after an apocalypse one needs a place to live.

Since it first aired in 2012, Doomsday Preppers has featured survival retreats ranging from pre-fabricated steel shelters and decommissioned missile silos, to hand-built forest cabins and buried shipping containers. What has emerged is a picture of the ideal survival retreat (or “bug-out location” to use prepper slang) as rural, secluded, self-sufficient, and fortified.

The show has even spawned an appthat challenges you to “design a multi-level dream bunker complete with everything you need for post-apocalyptic bliss.”

The roots of the survivalist industry
The idea of a domestic structure for emergency protection is not new. The Cold War nuclear fall-out shelter programs of the late 1950s and early 1960s provide an example of this as a mass phenomenon.

The kind of survival retreat we can see in Doomsday Preppers emerged a bit later. It solidified around the concept of a dedicated, self-sufficient (“off-grid”), secluded, and secure home.

The late-1960s saw a surge in publishing and communication networks that disseminated discussion and advice on designing for this ideal. These networks also helped establish the roots of the present-day survivalist industry.

In the late 1960s, the American architect Don Stephens ran seminars on how to build and equip a remote survival retreat. Publications such as Joel M. Skousen’s The Survival Home Manual: Architectural Design, Construction and Remodeling of Self-Sufficient Residencies and Retreats(1977) also appeared.

Today, an Internet search will find dozens of similar titles, such as Dirt Cheap Survival Retreat(2011) and The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid(2011).

There are also any number of survivalist (or prepping) blogs, forums, expos, equipment suppliers, consultants, and even celebrities such as bestselling author James Wesley Rawles(who wrote the Patriotsnovel series), editor of SurvivalBlog.

A thriving industry has grown up around planning for apocalypse, with the design and equipping of the ideal home as a key element.