Green space, installation art and public amenity are all distorted into something fresh and provocative with this strange creation, crashing together at the intersection of amusement and apocalypse.

Developed as part of the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in London by The Edible Bus Stop, a landscape firm that clearly has a sense of humor, the resulting scene is bit hard to parse at a glance.

A totaled car (presumably misled by the lines), smashed phone booth and colorful graffiti help set the stage, but it’s the yellow lines that rise up from the ground and take physical form that really lend the whole work an edge of comic surrealism. A smattering of green growing up through the pavement helps, too.

The temporary exhibition was titled Riot of Color conceived of as “a post apocalyptic interpretation of the after effects of the 2011 London riots.” The dark inspiration is evident, but perhaps overshadowed a bit by absurdity. (via Colossal)

The world of future-focused artwork tends to examine extreme outcomes, but this artist’s visions represent a compelling range of possibilities from catastrophic to optimistic, Dystopian to Utopian with other shades of gray in between.

First consider the range of negative outcomes and what they would do to villages, towns and cities around the world (as illustrated in this first round of images above and below) – built environments afflicted by surprising climatic changes like heat waves, ice storms and droughts.

On the one hand, Evgeny Kazantsev considers these disaster scenarios, from dust storms in Barcelona and villages in the Alps without snow to Venice gone dry and oceans overrunning desert cities. But this is only half of the story.

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Altopias Speculative Art Explores Both Dark Light Futures

Located in a converted subterranean silo near Concordia, Kansas, the first complex of these high-end survival accommodations is already sold out and their creators are working on a second nuke-proof silo transformation project for eager buyers. Many silo homes exist already, but few are designed for multi-family living and many remain semi-theoretical as yet – this one is luxurious and fully realized.

Luxury Survival Condos boasts both the nuts and bolts, “physical protection, redundant infrastructure for power, water, air, and food,” as well as a surprising array of amenities: facilities for “cross training, aquaponic farming, medical support” including a “community swimming pool, dog walking park, rock climbing wall, theater and general store” as well as a jail for anyone who misbehaves.

The eye-popping prices are compared by founder Larry Hall to Manhattan residences, but seem steep even by New York City metrics: $1.5 million for a half-floor unit just under 1,000 square feet, $3 million for a full floor and $4.5 million for a “penthouse” (two floors). For those who can afford it, the company also offers their services for transforming whole silos into single-family survival retreats.

The first space was purchased in 2008 and features seven floors of living spaces, able to accommodate up to 75 occupants. The various areas are connected by elevators (to be powered by green off-grid sources in an emergency) as well as stairs for redundancy. Each resident is allocated a 5-year supply of freeze-dried food in addition to the vegetables and fish grown and bred underground. Water and air treatment are addressed as well, with a 750,000-gallon reserve of drinking water as well as filtering systems. Generators and wind turbines feed into a battery bank to store up at least some level of power reserves as needed.

Given how much people pay to buy these units one has to wonder if they ever bother to use them under normal conditions, perhaps to get a sense of what life would really be like should they end up living there in a real end-of-world scenario. Of course, the standard problems apply: if others know where this is, what is to keep the hordes from attempting to overwhelm it were a global disaster ever to unfold?

Strangely sustainable, this towering haven is designed to turn the energy of the undead toward a positive purpose, using zombies to turn a turbine in order to provide both power and water pressure in case of a viral apocalypse.

As part of the Zombie Safe House competition, this Zombie Ranch entry goes above and beyond simply protecting people from risen corpses, turning their lust for blood and brains into a baited trap to keep life going above the ground.

The slow-moving zombies push a twisting turbine that sends water up for drinking and farming on a second story – residents occupy the top level, presumably for an extra layer of safety and to get some distance from the groaning hordes.

A series of spiral staircases and drawbridges provide ways to cut off attacks on each floor as well as a means of lifting the entire structure further skyward to make it less accessible when a swarm wanders through.

Each zombie-resistant tower is designed to be fully self-sufficient so survivors can remain aloft indefinitely, leaving them free to enjoy the end of the world in relative luxury.

What if we filled the world with nothing but cars, or skyscrapers, or if we simply started building an industrialized mountain (like a modern-day Tower of Babel) that reached forever upward?

Michael Kerbow is a San Francisco explores ways in which a world could end of industry were iterated to a point of near-infinite proportions – his works depict bottomless mines, planets covered (and carved out) with man-made structures and much more.

With titles like Fool’s Gold, Hollow Pursuits, Witching Hour and Diminishing Returns, it seems clear where the artist stands on the issue of endless industrialization in the face of limited resources and finite space.

While he works with assemblage and digitally-manipulated photography, Kerbow’s large-scale paintings in particular show fascinating possible worlds where urbanization has pushed past the limits of reason and sustainability.

Of himself, he writes: “My work explores the way in which we engage with our surroundings and the possible consequences our actions have upon the world in which we live. Through my work I attempt to question the rationale of our choices, and try to reveal the dichotomy that may exist between what we desire and what we manifest. Recently my work has focused upon the mechanisms that power our society and examines how they may influence the construct for a possible future.”