Ideas Factory/ the foundry

29 on the go · 3 materials
nothing here is finished

High drone view from the south-west in low golden evening light, looking up a Dales valley side to limestone scars. The house is a long low rectangle of grass roof on a silver-grey limestone base, its south-west front a dark line of glazing, with a small planted courtyard sunk into the middle of the roof and a drystone field wall running down the slope to a square stone pier on the roof with smoke rising from it. A sunken ha-ha curves round below the house. Above it are the stone field barn by the track down from the lane, a walled kitchen garden with a long greenhouse, an orchard, a small wind turbine, and rows of solar panels at the right edge, all in a patchwork of drystone-walled pasture. Off brief: the house stands as a stone-walled box on the slope, with stone end walls showing on both sides, rather than a roof that carries straight back into the hillside. The front reads as one continuous strip of glass almost flush with the stone, with no deep covered porch, no piers and no steel screens.

← the floorStorm Watch House/systems·if / 071

Two weeks sealed

Water, waste, air, power, food, radiation and comms for six people sealed below for fourteen days, and the off-grid systems above.

The card

systems 01 of 01

Two weeks sealed

systems 01 of 01idea_071

The notes

rendered

Planning figures for six people sealed for fourteen days. They are to be confirmed by a specialist shelter engineer.

systems sizing

System Basis Proposed
Water reserve 6 people × 14 days × about 10 litres a day for drinking, cooking and minimal washing 1,000 litre sealed tank inside the envelope, topped up from the borehole when safe
Waste Low-flush vacuum WCs, rationed showers About 1,500 litre sealed holding tank, pumped out afterwards
Air Filtered fresh air at roughly 6 m³ per person per hour in filter mode Filtration unit around 40 m³/h, 50 to 100 Pa overpressure, hand-crank fan backup
Air intake and exhaust Must survive blast and not be found Blast valves and a gravel prefilter. The shafts rise inside the drystone wall on the roof
Power Essential load about 20 to 25 kWh a day: fans, lights, fridge, comms, cooking, sump pumps, aquaponics air 150 kWh battery, with solar and wind still charging through buried cables. About 300 kWh would cover the full period with no charging at all
Food 6 × 14 × about 2,200 kcal Around 50 to 60 kg of dry staples plus tins, rotated through the dry stores
Radiation monitoring Know when it is safe to open up Survey meter and personal dosimeters, with a reading point inside the airlock
Comms Contact with the outside while sealed Wired links to aerials on the barn and the roof wall, and a battery radio

sealed

  • Filtered air with slight overpressure, so nothing leaks in through gaps.
  • A sealed water reserve of around 1,000 litres inside the envelope, topped up from the borehole when safe.
  • Bunker toilets and showers draining to a sealed holding tank.
  • A bunkroom for six, dry stores, a kitchenette in the family room, and its own comms.
  • A battery sized to run filtration and lights for the whole period with no generator.

The two-week period is one of the three biggest cost levers. It sizes the filtration, the water reserve and the batteries.

every day

  • Energy. Off grid by default, with instant islanding from a backup grid link. Solar, a small wind turbine, a battery, and a generator in the barn.
  • Heat and water. A ground source heat pump plus the masonry stove, and a borehole plus rainwater.
  • Food. A walled garden, a greenhouse, an orchard and trout aquaponics, with the growing shared, and staples stored.

The drawings

2 sheets
Bunker level plan, sheet A-100 rev B, 1 m grid, inside a sealed, filtered-air envelope under the house. The hidden stair and lift arrive in the stair core, and the blast door leads from it into the airlock, then the decontamination showers, then the gas-tight door into the bunker hall. Round the hall and a cross corridor are the dry stores, water reserve, office and comms room, bunkroom with six berths, aquaponics with trout and greens, air plant and filtration, battery room, gym, cinema, WCs and shower, the family room with its kitchenette, wine, root cellar, bulk stores, and sauna and plunge. At the north-east corner, a tunnel airlock leads off to the barn, about 35 m away.
01 · Bunker level plan
Bunker entry detail, sheet A-110 rev C. The stair comes down from the hidden door above into the stair core with the lift. The blast door leads from the stair core into the airlock, 17.5 m² and big enough for six. Then comes the decontamination room, in order undress, shower, dress, and then the gas-tight door into the bunker hall, the clean side. Filtered air comes in at the far end of the hall and leaks outward through decon and the airlock, never in. The water reserve of 1,000 litres and the office and comms room sit behind, the bunkroom to the left, the aquaponics and gym to the right, and a corridor below leads to the family room, bunkroom and cinema.
02 · Bunker entry detail