Silo from
the show SILO is a vertical megastructure that's borrowed
thousands of feet into the earth. The equivalent of roughly four Empire
State Buildings. It houses something like 10,000 people who for generations
and generations have never been outside. Just imagine
your entire understanding of the world is within the confines of this bunker. In the back story, the Earth's surface
has become toxic from a nuclear war. So it's a self sutaining structure that's
completely sealed off from the outside. And doing research on this. I was shocked to learn that a huge part of our population
today are prepared to do just that. SILO and bunkers in general is a concrete
manifestation of our anxieties, and it speaks of a society
that's terrified of ourselves. but the irony is that
thousands of years from now, what's going to be left
of humanity, this or this? a portion of this video sponsored by Straight Arrow News. This is a survival condo. It's a 15 story luxury
survival bunker in Kansas with a pool, a library,
and even a theater. They took a decommissioned missile silo,
obviously designed to withstand a nuclear blast and turned it into what
you call a nuclear hardened facility. It's founded by an ex-government
contractor called Larry Hall, who initially bought the silo for him
and his family, but then realized there's a huge market
for these types of shelters. Now, all of the units are sold out. It's only designed for 75 people. So of course, the SILO is multitudes
of times bigger in scale and complexity. But I think it's really interesting
to compare the exterior walls of the survival
condo are up to nine feet thick of epoxy hardened concrete with roughly 600
tons of rebar. It's got specialized ventilation systems
with NBC filters. So not only are
you protected from a nuclear blast, but you're going to have clean, breathable air
during the fallout of a nuclear event. since in silo the surface of the Earth
is technically a perpetual fallout. and considering, it's
essentially one giant atrium, it probably has a similar,
if not more rigorous ventilation system. The difference could be that in the silo,
the system probably doesn't have the ability to switch
to intake from the outside air. Since operating under the assumption
that the outside is constantly hostile, but in the survival condo,
the system could switch to an external air intake
after the fallout. they have a wide array of different power
sources, including wind turbines, geothermal and a diesel generator
as a backup system. All of which create redundancy. We do know that in Silo,
the generator is a little bit more labor intensive
and it probably relies more heavily on geothermal energy
since it's much deeper into the ground. they also have a water
treatment plant, food production
with hydroponics and aquaponics systems. They have military grade security systems,
and there's even a silo cap so that you can observe
the apocalyptic wasteland. So technically
you could stay there indefinitely. But could you really live in a bunker
indefinitely? Clicking sounds. Sounds that reveal
the presence of radioactive waves. What if someday a bomb is dropped
on our cities... the majority of these bunkers were built
during the Cold War when the fear of a nuclear
war was constant. Some governments, like Switzerland, built
bunkers for everyone in their population. But in the U.S.,
they assessed it, realized it was too expensive,
so it never really happened. Instead, Kennedy tells everyone,
If you have the means, build a bunker for you and your family. So there was a lot of demand. And if there is one thing
the private industry does better than anything
else, it's capitalizing on your fears. So this is what triggers
this multibillion dollar bunker industry. It kind of died down in the nineties,
but now we're seeing another resurgence, especially since the pandemic
and the threat of several wars and AI and climate change
the same kind of fears. Except
now they're a lot harder to quantify. Apparently, 40% of the American population
believe that stocking up on supplies or building a bomb shelter is a wiser
investment than saving up for retirement. some of the things we're talking about
today is a really great example of why having access to objective,
factual news is so important. But as someone who spends a lot of time researching,
I do find that if you're not careful, it's very easy for you to get influenced
by biased journalism. Straight Arrow News is
the sponsor of today's video and they help you find fact
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the link in the description. This is just one of the many companies
offering luxury bunkers in the comfort
of your backyard or mansion. Backyard. This one starts at the low
cost of $2 million. And this whole trend
is probably exacerbated by billionaires building their bunkers
on their private islands. And there's
this general sense around bunkers that's very individualistic, Vivos. X point is a bunker community
which offers bunkers for the average Joe. But even here, there's
no path between these bunkers. So really, it's for you and your family. apparently 72 hours till animal
is a very popular saying amongst preppers. And it's this idea that even the gentlest people
can become savage in a catastrophe. So we're not just protecting ourselves
from a nuclear attack, but really, we're protecting us from them And this is arguably
the biggest difference in the silo. Silo is a functioning community
which actually goes beyond just physical proximity. A community has shared responsibility
and experiences and relationships and common goals. There's thinking around how to connect
with other communities and in the silo. Every story, every rule,
every detail is designed to ensure the continuation
of a completely enclosed society. In that sense, it's actually a bit closer
to an earth scraper concept. They are super conceptual. And the purpose actually isn't even
to protect you from a nuclear strike, but it's more of a solution. In this case to earthquakes and
in this case to urban space limitations. But they do pose an interesting solution for a sustainable subterranean community. And all of them have one thing in common. They're centered around an open core. this room in the silo
is hundreds of feet into the ground. But you can still see how windows
capture the essence of daylight. even the artificial lighting
is designed to mimic daylight. And this central stairwell
is probably the biggest indicator of that. this is the main central hub
where people gather and celebrate. They did a bunch of iterations
for the atrium, but landed on a circle. And I think that's because compared
to all of these other options, it feels the most like a united hall. and the circular motif shows up
in every little detail of the silo. They also explored
a bunch of different material options, but landed on this very brutalist
esthetic. And aside from the geometry, it actually
reminded me a lot of this building. the Robarts Library You can see the similarities in the columns
and the slab, the lights and the geometry. Roberts is a great example of brutalism,
and it really embodies all of the characteristics
from that postwar era. It's austere. It's raw, and people hate it. it was a popular style for institutional
buildings at the time because it conveyed a sense of stability and permanence
during a time of uncertainty. It was also very democratic
with these grand open spaces for the public to roam around. But it turned out people didn't really like hanging out
in these big concrete spaces. So they became abandoned
and they deteriorated. So this grand stairwell in the silo
is kind of a brutalist wet dream. I actually spent a lot of time here
during my thesis, and I was always kind of amused
by the irony of this building. The scale, and especially at the entry,
it's like too much. It's almost like a caricature
of an evil layer. they actually did talk about
demolishing the building, but apparently the cost
and environmental damage of the demolition would be so astronomical that they decided
to just slap on a glass facade instead. It's literally
one of the most hated buildings on campus. But by the nature of the sheer mass, it's probably
going to outlast most buildings. And maybe it'll even outlast us. Kind of like a bunker. So a couple of years
ago, I tried to imagine how a building like Robarts could exist through time
in just a few years. Native animals, species
start to come back. The atrium, which connects all the floors, becomes a breeding ground
for different plant species. The rare books library
would start to grow mold and fungi. Maybe it could even become a rich habitat
for different animal species. It was definitely more of a visual
thought exercise more than anything. But I think it's so interesting
to try to imagine a world without us and also to think about
what will be left of our civilization in hundreds or thousands of years. Right now, bunkers are supposed
to be temporary shelters where people hide out in isolation
to wait out the apocalypse. There's even ideas for bunkers
where you can store your DNA so that even if you don't make it,
your genes could But even if they can sustain
you physically without this social fabric, what exactly is being preserved And is it even worth preserving? So silo as an alternative
to this idea of survival, it's designed
not just to protect the physical bodies, but it's crafted to preserve and kindle all of the other aspects of being a human,
which in a weird way also happens to be the key to long term
survival in an enclosed society. So in that sense, the stairwell is
a symbol of our social DNA. Just like what
the opening sequence suggests. but there's also a dark side to this. According to the books, the vertical distance
between the floors is roughly 50 feet, which is roughly four times the average
height of a floor in a building. they kind of bypass
this detail in the show. But realistically,
the journey between floor should take days and to get from top to bottom,
it should take months. So the stairs limit
the flow of information and it limits
the connecting of different sections, which is the perfect way
to control population, right? If you look at it like this,
the architecture and the community helps to create this
illusion of a normal society, which is also used as a tool
to keep people down there. that got kind of dark, but preparing for a nuclear holocaust.... that is kind of a dark topic. But of course, silo is not just a story
of people hiding out or being manipulated, but it's about people questioning
by control and questioning their reality, because that's the other aspect
of human nature that we can't really suppress our ability to constantly and even annoyingly reflect
on our own existence and question the world and the desire to explore
beyond our immediate environment. And for me, bunkers help us ask
some really fundamental questions about human nature and humanity. What aspects are worth
sharing to some unknown future species? What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments.
