So, when I stumbled across the Survival Condo, I thought, "Hmmmm, that sounds like it could be a GreenZoneSolution". But as flipped through the website pages, I found myself somehow disappointed. I mean, this concept is right up my alley, I thought to myself. I was raised in the seventies and watched movies like Damnation Alley, Soylent Green and Mad Max until I was convinced that we were only moments away from living in a post-apocalyptic desert of hate. So what is it that I think misses the mark with Survival Condo? Where do I start...
- Vague references to specific hazards (hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc) are noted, but the emphasis is primarily on impending cataclysmic catastrophes like the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012, the discovery of Planet X or Nibiru - a rogue planet that is supposed to enter Earth's orbit in the next year or two and create havoc with our gravitation (a new one to me), planetary collisions, alien contact, and the impact of solar storms on our magnetic field. In emergency management these scenarios might qualify as what's known as low probability-high consequence events (meaning, not likely to happen but if it does, watch out!), but I think use of that term would be a stretch in these cases. Frankly, I place these concepts right next to conspiracy theories in terms of likelihood. But as Woody Allen is credited with pointing out, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. It would be my guess that when you start introducing those possibilities while you are asking a party to make an investment as high as $1.5 million for an 1800 square foot residence, you are going to attract a fringe element.
- Quote from the website: "...the concept of the individual owners forming an "extended family" where everyone shares the responsibilities for group security, operation and maintenance of the facility, new daily functions for education, cross training, hydroponic farming, medical support, and as many other tasks as possible to create the highest quality of life for the "extended family" while operating in "survival mode". It's these kinds of phrases that make me wonder about whether this is more of a gated community or an intentional community, and if the latter, who am I getting involved with here?
- Google Ads are at the top center of the main page, leading me to wonder what is the business model? It is distracting and make me think that this project is driven by finance rather than my personal best interests?
- Location, location, location? There are no references to the location of the Survival Condo but there were only 72 Atlas F complexes built in the 1960's built in remote locations of six states in the U.S. Apparently, one of the sites is built near Roswell, New Mexico...
- Weak website security in "resident only" sections that appears could be cracked by an astute 12 year old in a few minutes
- Odd use of capitalization and quote marks throughout the text and formating around the entire site that, in general, is just a bit off gives me an uncomfortable feeling about making a major life decision or investment here.
The overall tone of the website is reminisent of the glory days of American Survival Guide Magazine but I like to think we've moved beyond the paranoia and now look at preparedness as a responsibility that everyone should undertake and do so in combination with sustainable resources and design in mind because of the logical relationship as a redundant infrastructure and the opportunities to create environments that are Renewable, Reliable and Remarkable.
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Josh,
ReplyDeleteWow, I'm not sure how to take this, so I'll opt for the high road. Since I am the owner of survivalcondo.com (the physical site, the project, and the conceptual design) I can honestly say "the buck stops here".
1) You assessment is harsh in that you project your design criteria onto the soultion I came up with to a different problem set.
2) I even coded the web page, so I'll own any of those short comings too. The google ads generate about $200 per month and the site has only been up a little over two months, but money is not the purpose, nor was it intended to be a distraction. It was put in to help pay for the adwords that get the site to display based on googled key words. Nothing sinister.
3) The price although quite high by most people's standards, is very reasonable given the finished product. The facility had design constraints in the amount of air, water, waste, and especially food that it could produce. The facility is engineered to support up to 50 people indefinately. No doubt you could cram more people in here and make smaller units, but you could not sustain them long-term. That was one of the design criteria.
4) Back to price. The completed facility will be just over 40,000 sq. ft. There are six residential floors at $1,750,000. Gross sales will be 6 X $1,750,000 = $10,500,000. Divide that by 40,000 sq. ft. and you get a cost per sq. ft. = $262.50. As your quote above references, the price includes 5 years of food, furniture, and many other specialized gear. This price is outstanding, especially given the incredible strength of this facility. Other builders are quoting between $450 to over $750 per sq. ft. and those facilities don't come close to the specifications of this project. The Radius Engineering product is considerably more expensive than our project and is single use facility.
5) That leads to the conventional appliance and dual use of this facility. That was another design criteria. Rather than have just a bomb shelter, this is also a normal (high-end) second home, retirement home, or primary residence. Most if not all our competitor's are selling single use facilities that amount to an insurance expense.
6) This facility uses a lot of green technology and is incredibly energy efficient. The hydroponic and aquaculture will be certified organic. The site is in a class 4 wind area and has 3 sources of off-grid electricity. The water is cleaner than bottled water and is processed on site. The sewer system is eco friendly as well.
7) The extra features like the theater, class room, library, pool, workout room were all designed to help meet long-term psychological concerns. We even have special LED lighting that creates full spectrum lighting that helps to eliminate depression.
All in all, I am quite proud of the thought and research that went into this design. I don't want to come across as being sensitive to criticism, I just think your comments are out of place because this facility was designed to solve very specific problems of long-term off-grid living while still providing for a normal mode of use.
If you have specific questions about any aspect of the project, I'd be happy to address them. My email address is info@survivalcondo.com.
Sincerely,
Larry Hall
Project Manager/Owner
SurvivalCondo.com
Larry, First I'd like to thank you for clearly taking the time to address each point I made that you disagree with. I think that is the important thing to point out here is that these posts are my opinions only and I am just trying to work out what I see as an emerging field based on a growing need, as are you. So please let me respond to your each of your comments below:
ReplyDelete1) The foundation of the blog is based on design - specifically as it applies to disaster mitigation and sustainability. The word design I use as architect William McDonough, controversial but certainly acknowledged as a major player in the modern sustainable design movement, described when he said "Design is a signal of intent". This intent he goes on to explain may be on purpose or by accident. For example, if we fail to provide adequate drainage on a site, we say the site was designed badly. I also consider the experience of the user an aspect of design as defined by Tom and David Kelley of IDEO as a benchmark of good design. And finally, aesthetic appeal is also a factor in design, albeit one left up to the viewer exclusively.
With that being said, in general it is my opinion based on my experience that form often takes a back seat to function where emergency management is the subject. Concrete, steel beams and thick glass are often the medium of choice. I can understand why these materials are ubiquitous and they actually appeal to my sense of taste personally, but I think there is an opportunity to use (or reuse in the case of Survival Condo) them in a way that is aesthetically appealing and does not compromise user experience. I am very interested in how user experience and passive survivability in particular can be used in a positive way to bring disaster mitigation more into the mainstream.
So yes, this is a subjective opinion of design and certainly open to many interpretations and I do realize that I do not have the traditional perspective on these matters.
2) Of course bringing visitors to a website is critical. Google AdSense and AdWords are certainly one way to call attention to a website and probably the easiest - and certainly the additional revenue does not hurt. But my gripe with the services goes beyond your site and is based on the lack of control that website providers like you and I have over the specific content that Google actually posts on the site. I manage several blog sites and have elected to not utilize AdWords as part of my business model for this very reason. As Google allows for more control in that aspect I will certainly be willing to include the service.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of formatting a website so that people are able to find it when they are looking for a service that the site provides. SEO is almost as much an art as it is a science. It is rather complicated to master or at least very involved, as the best techniques to implement successful strategies changes frequently without formal notice and few people have the time, interest or background to get it done well. SEO answers the question, "How do I come up on the first page of a Google search?". Please forgive me if you are already familiar with this, I just feel it's relevant ground to cover here because you indicate the ads are related to your internet marketing plan and I think there are better alternatives out there.
The bottom line is that the advertisements were distracting to me. In some cases I even noticed other companies you might consider to be competition listed as an ad on your site. Frankly I would be thrilled if a customer took the time to give me direct feedback on a marketing campaign I was rolling out.
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3, 4 & 5) I will concede that your figures on the price per square foot do seem reasonable. I suppose I would need to factor in the physical location of the facility to equation in order to have a better sense of that. I did think I was rather complimentary regarding decisions to reuse a previously built facility and then outfit the units with high end, energy efficient appliances with attention to detail such as full spectrum LED lighting.
ReplyDelete6) References on the site and in your comments to renewable energy systems sound very promising and again, I thought I had previously cited that as a positive element to the project. I would be interested in seeing a little deeper level of detail on that front that I think could be provided on the website without any compromise to facility security. It is just my opinion but I think today's customer is educated and informed and capable of understanding some relatively complex material. Perhaps you could even provide a white paper on that aspect. It would be an opportunity to establish yourself as an expert in the field, as you must have clearly learned a great deal immersing yourself in this project.
In conclusion, perhaps I should have phrased my post in such a way that it was less glib and more as truly constructive criticism. As I mentioned several times and will reiterate again here, I think the project is intriguing and has a great deal of potential. I suppose I am focusing more on the marketing on the website in my post rather than the technical elements of the facility. I am guessing your company is investing a great deal of money into this and I would genuinely like to see it succeed. I just think there is a way to promote the positive aspects without placing undue emphasis on the worst case scenario as a motivator. It sounds to me like it is a unique setup that includes many critical features that may be hard to come by following a major disaster.
Once again, I'd like to thank you for your time and appreciate the opportunity to engage in an open dialog with you on this. I'd be very interested in hearing about progress you are making on the project. - Josh
Josh,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the observation that "design is signal of intent" and that comment has some critical points about my comments above. Specifically, the design I presented as the "survival condo project" was the output of the design process that included some creative solutions to specific requirements. I found your blog as part of a google search and I did not look at the other portions of your site to adjust for context. I took your comments to be observations about my design that did not meet your requirements. A bit of a "no win" if your requirements are different from the ones I was "designing to".
I do agree with your observation that there are missing details and you are quite correct in noting that they do not have to do with a potential security issue. Those details are missing because we have several options that are dependent on budget, the mix of half-floor vs. full-floor units and a final decision regarding elevator placement. All of these issues will be resolved in the very near future and I will update the website with the additional details.
The common things we could agree on as intriguing design elements would include key features like:
1) Monolithic Dome covering the silo cap
2) Use of "green" technologies throughout
3) Active and Passive Solar systems
4) Wind turbine use
5) Eco friendly septic system
6) Geo-Thermal technology for heat exchangers
7) Self-Sufficient hydroponic and aquaculture systems
8) Conversion of a Formerly Used Defense Site to a residential facility
9) The dual use nature of the finished project
10) The coolness of living in what was an Atlas Missile Base.
Other design elements you would find unusual would include the round shape, ceiling heights, the connecting tunnel, and the redundant critical systems.
The website is a temporary portal to the information and is very dynamic so I don't want to focus on the various options here other than to add that it is my understanding that you can restrict which ads google will display on your site. You can exclude you competitors if you wish to. I do like the capabilities that google provides, if your readers are not aware of the google programs I would encourage them to look into it. We have had great success with their ad programs.
Perhaps as we get into construction and the systems come together I'll have an opportunity to show you the facility in person and that would be the best way to truly convey the relative success or failure of a design. I believe that you would be favorably impressed, plus it would be a heck of a fun field trip.
Sincerely,
Larry Hall
Project Manager/Owner
SurvivalCondo.com