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10,000 Square Foot Underground Bunker Will Remain Forever

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Here’s a modern building that is entirely stone, from Longhi Architects. Because it is entirely constructed of stone, it will last thousands of years. It’s also almost entirely underground, which will make it able to withstand extreme climate change in the meantime.

Stone buildings last centuries. That’s why we still can see the remnants of ancient Greek and Roman structures built more than two thousand years ago: they used stone, not wood framing and caulked drywall and carpeted flooring. The Parthenon in Rome will far outlast your neighborhood big box RiteAid store.

Locally quarried, smoothed and polished stone also is used inside to construct the interior walls and even some shelving. For its longevity, it will certainly win LEED points: it’s not going to the landfill any decade soon. Its energy use is moderated by being underground. So it’s green.

For what amounts to a 10,000 square foot underground bunker, light is able to get down into the entirely stone hewn space fairly well. The dining room table is a huge singular stone set permanently in place.

But there’s something very disturbing about this structure. If, many centuries into our future – on what will then be “Eaarth” – anyone is left to wonder about the architecture of the 21st century, this will be what remains, to show them.

Too bad that it doesn’t represent the greatest of this century’s architecture. It’s ugly. It’s not like the noble and dignified stone remains that our ancestors left, two to five thousand years ago, all over the world. They’ll think we were a bit strange – and they’ll be right, in a way…  because who would ever imagine that a fully intelligent human species would allow itself to destroy its civilization with climate change.

Source: Doornob