Paraguayan home Caja Oscura, by local architects Javier Corvalán and Laboratorio de Arquitectura, consists of a basement structure, with a manually-operated tilting metal box placed atop. With no natural light available when the box is closed, this unusual dwelling is probably not suitable for those who fear being trapped in a small enclosed space, but it is arguably the perfect place to ride out the Apocalypse …
The property measures 914 sq ft and contains a bedroom and bathroom in the crypt-like basement, with a kitchen and living area located in the metal box above (access is offered via a staircase). This latter area is transformed into a semi-outdoor space once raised with a hand-crank, and the metal box itself is constructed from iron tubes, with a galvanized corrugated metal exterior and MDF interior.
When closed, however, the structure appears to be very robust, safe from prying eyes, and more importantly, virtually impenetrable.
To our minds…it’s obviously envisioned as the perfect post-apocalyptic retreat ready for the inevitable zombie rising…
The hideaway was built for about $27,000 which should make it perfect for the average cheapskate survivalist. All you need to add is gun ports for the United States. Sturdier is possible – throwing more dollars at the project; but, if you expect nothing more than zombies this should be adequate.
And die of asphyxiation.
Where I live, holiday homes are regularly ransacked. This should at least discourage break ins.
I have a large stock of can-openers. Now I know where I can sell them.
HELP!! HELP! the paranoids are after me!!!
I’m guessing, door to door salesmen are not very popular in Paraguay.
Enclosed metal box in a hot Paraguayan summer?
Sign me up!!
That looks exactly like a trap I used for squirrels and birds as a kid. All that’s missing is a stick and a string to pull the stick out.
HAR! Yup.
I faked sick and stayed home from school one day to do just that… I was so proud when I’d caught a bright red, male cardinal with that very same box trap and stick under the sassifras trees.
I made him a perch, and everything….’If you love something, set it free. If it comes back’… Boy, he really must have really despised me, the little shit-factory.
I met a man once who was pretty savvy with DIY stuff, “make me a car that uses a fan to drive an alternator” aside…
He pointed out that my 5-year fight over a particular transmission was because my origional 1969 t-bird C6 one was never actually replaced by the people that charged buku bucks to redo all that; “see how this shaft is scored?? That’s your problem. Mind the snakes…” (Every C6 replacement I did since used the same TC) — (They couldn’t obtain it so I got a $1000 front seal and pump, apparently).
Anyways, his house burned down one day and he blasted his next one out 3-stories deep until he hit groundwater. All concrete and steel, all furniture crafted from ‘lightcrete’. A stream going through his bottom floor — looks like a junk-dealer’s shanty-shack on the surface… It doesn’t sound or look that ‘homey’ but “I want that one, daddy.”
Yikes, I think I’ll just die on the surface thank you very much.
Really? I’d love a place like that… He never actually invited me inside to see for myself though he’d always remember me when I’d return every couple years for a part and want to pick my brain over his latest free-energy schemes — Dude was way cool. He even reminded me that he still had an old Hearse with a 429 he’d saved for me when most other like ‘meat machines’ had been crushed… 500 bucks. I wish I had somewhere to put it then (or now).
A permanent resident ‘in the know’ in that college town related the details of his new ‘construction’ to me… It didn’t stay a shack that long as a year later it looked like a working mail-order log home complete with front porch and overhang. I say *looked like* because some unfinished exposed parts seem to indicate it was a facade over concrete.
Incidentally, it had always been a ‘pipe dream’ of mine to bugger off and operate/live in a personal Opal mine in australia ever since I saw one on tv back in the early 80’s.
Embiggen your house part of the day, and every month or so find a chunk of opal, drive to town, and trade it for beer, dip, and whatever they eat.
Oh well. I hear they suk ‘merica style now, anyways.
http://outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/coober-pedy-australia.html
Presumably there are no hurricanes in Paraguay. Hate to see the box part, ripped off its pivots. But I can’t see how it wouldn’t be.