Okay. Admit it. The “Zombie-proof” thing did it, right? You see that headline and you’ve just gotta read the story. Well, I promise, this won’t disappoint. Here at TTAG World HQ, we’ve been discussing for some time, how best to turn your home sweet home into a (more-)easily defensible castle, short of digging a moat and stocking it with all sorts of pre-Cambian reptiles. Problem is, that’s kind of solving the problem with one hand tied behind your back. How do you harden a target when you’re starting with a typical, suburban home with shrubs, trees, glass windows, crawl spaces, neighbors, et cetera? Perhaps the answer is “get a different house.” With that in mind, (and in my very best Rod Serling voice) . . .
Presented for your consideration – when is a house more than a home? When it’s a fortress, not only of solitude, but one that will prevent assault by everything from zombies and angry flash mobs bent on destruction to roving bands of teen-heartthrob vampires and werewolves. Next stop…the Twilight Home.
Okay, I’m sorry about that last pun. It was like a mountain…I had to climb it. But if price is no object and you have a couple of acres of land to build your dream citadel upon, this design has got to qualify for as an I. M. Pei-inspired dream home for paranoid home-owners everywhere. Let’s get the niceties out of the way first off…
This is, if you’re into post-modern design, a very nice house. (Me, I’m a fan of Prairie-style, Arts & Crafts, and Antebellum homes, but what do I know?)
Even when you’re upstairs.
Hell, you can even see through to the opposite yard, through the house. Now that’s cool.
As long as you’re down with some serious lawn maintenance, this would be a dream home. Notice the large, protruding, decorative panel in the shot above? Well form follows function, my man. It’s not decorative. It’s functional.
Yep. Those are hinges. And those panels are on motorized swivels.
There’s a big, honkin’, hardened steel, motorized overhead door, too.
Welcome to my secret lair, Mr. Bond…
Now THAT’S a lot of concrete. As long as they don’t shoot off your security cameras on the corners, you’ll be able to see the Zombie hordes’ fruitless attempts to get in and get you. But what about an exit?
Note that as the overhead door descends, the skybridge on the left raises? Here’s a closer look:
There’s a reinforced concrete fence that surrounds the property, with motorized gates, too.
There are a lot more pictures on the architect’s site, if you’re interested. I have some questions, though. I’m curious as to how many minutes it takes to go into “bunker” mode. I mean, as long as your perimeter alarms go off (a dicey proposition, unless you have your own power grid) how long does it take to go “shields-up” and set phasers to “terminate with extreme prejudice”?
Regardless, this looks like the ideal floor plan for everyone from those who believe a zombie attack is eminent, to South American drug lords (let’s see the ATF get into this one), to Vice Presidents who can’t keep the location of their current secret lair a secret. And if you’re lucky enough to build over a decommissioned missile silo, you could conceivably have a place secure enough to withstand even a daisy cutter munition.
And a tip ‘0 the TTAG cap to the fine folks over at TNW and all-that-is-interesting.com for the pictures and story idea. Anybody wanna place bets that RF already has the architectural firm on the horn for a quote?