In an unnamed city somewhere in South America, construction is set to begin on a 3D-printed village designed specifically for families living on less than $200 per month. San Francisco-based design studio Fuseproject is collaborating with New Story, a non-profit organization fighting homelessness, and ICON, a construction technologies company to plan and build what they call “the world’s first 3D-printed community.”

“It is our belief that designers, builders and technology innovators have the potential to bring unprecedented speed and scale to housing design that can elevate the lives of some of the most impoverished populations around the globe. 3D printing, in particular, offers a new and powerful tool for realizing this potential and driving this mission forward. We will deliver this  groundbreaking method of homebuilding to families in Latin America who need affordable housing that adapts to their day-to-day lives.”

“We worked directly with the communities that we were designing for to learn more about their culture and environment to ensure that we were providing options that respond to their housing needs in ways that extended beyond single traditional home design. We used 3D technology and the unique design possibilities it enables to provide solutions that addressed important questions related to climate, family structure and the role that the homes play in creating a larger community.”

When finished later this year, the community will house more than 400 individuals. Residents will be able to personalize their homes, including the layout, number of bedrooms and color of the exterior. They’re being offered zero-interest loans, and amount they pay will vary depending on their income, with that money going into a shared fund to pay for other community resources.

It’s definitely achievable. ICON has already proven the concept with the first 3D-printed home in America using a combination of robotics, software and a cement-based mixture that can be extruded easily, bonds well between layers and hardens quickly. This proprietary mix called “Lavacrete II” has a compressive strength of 6,000 psi, which is well above the strength of existing building materials, as well as high thermal mass and the ability to withstand extreme weather conditions to minimize the impact of natural disasters. Combined with 3D printing technology, it enables rapid build times at a lower overall cost.

Aesthetics may not be the first consideration when it comes to emergency items like survival kits, post-disaster housing and relief supplies, but good design can make the difference between clunky, inefficient objects that hamper adequate response and the items that save as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible. Often created after designers witnessed disasters close to home, many of these solutions attempt to build preparedness into our daily lives, making it easy to grab a minimalist kit by the door or pack up a panicked pet at the last minute.

Pet Earthquake Emergency Bag

Have you thought about what you’d do with your cat or small dog if a disaster hit and you had to flee on foot? Transporting them in a standard pet carrier would be cumbersome and maybe even impossible. Enter the Pet Earthquake Bag Kit, created in response to the last major earthquake in Japan. Special pockets and straps make it possible to carry up to two household pets. It come sin two sizes and includes a human/pet emergency kit with water, treats, bandages and calming oils.

Minim-Aid Emergency Kit

This slim and minimalist stainless steel tube kit by Nendo takes up very little space hanging in a closet or on a hook by the door, but contains a raincoat, radio with gadget charger, lantern, drinking water and whistle. Waterproof and capable of floating, it would be easy to grab and carry at the last minute.

Reaction Housing System Flat-Pack Emergency Shelters

Stackable and easy to ship, the Reaction Housing System is made up of two easy-to-assemble pieces that can be used alone for a single unit or connected to multiple units. Each one can be configured as a living space or office and contain single beds that fold down from the wall and portable power generators. Twenty of them can be stacked on one semi-truck or C-130 Hercules plane, and 1,940 could be moved across the country on a freight train to house 7,760 survivors as quickly as possible. At $5K each, they’re far cheaper than most other solutions, like the ones FEMA currently uses.

Life Desk

The Life Desk was developed after a number of students were seriously injured or killed by the tables they were hiding under during earthquakes in China. The heavy duty high-strength-steel and nylon desk provides a long-lasting work surface for students and can be quickly folded for shelter in an emergency.

PATCH Urban Survival Kit

Looking like a small thermos on a key fob, PATCH is an urban survival kit designed specifically for city dwellers in the 21st century, containing all the core elements of a first-aid kit and adding a phone charger, multi-tool, zip ties, emergency blanket and other items you’d be likely to need if some kind of disaster made your surroundings unsafe.

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Designing For Disaster 15 Ideas For Preparedness Response

Some spots are such beautiful potential locations for a home, yet repeated natural disasters make them inhospitable for all but the strongest and most durable of dwellings. Architect Dionisio Gonzales imagines just how creative we could get in building disaster-proof structures with ‘Architecture for Resistance,’ a series of surrealist fantasies that often take their cues from natural shapes like shells.

Individual collections envision architecture for a particular location. ‘Dauphin Island’ is a series of hurricane-resistant designs for the island of the same name, located just south of Mobile, Alabama. The island has been hit by one hurricane after another. Gonzales believes that sustainable architecture could stop nature’s cycle of destruction with a dramatic change in the way our houses look.

The Dauphin Island creations are “real futuristic forts made of iron and concrete,” with shapes that call to mind sea shells, crustaceans and other marine organisms. It’s easy to imagine these structures closing up like forts to guard against high winds and flooding.

Gonzales also designed bizarro-world versions of Brazil’s favelas and the shabby settlements in the hills of Busan, South Korea, making a commentary on the coexistence of the wealthy and the very poor. The designs bring visually disjointed, futuristic structures into neighborhoods that are already chaotic in an attempt to legitimize the architectural vernacular of each location.

106 years ago, San Francisco was in ruins. The earthquake of 1906 destroyed over 80% of the city, with 30 fires that broke out as a result burning down 25,000 buildings on 490 city blocks.  But reconstruction preserved much of the city’s architecture, and today you’d never know that it occurred at all – as evidenced by a set of amazing composite images by photographer Shawn Clover.

Clover has released his painstakingly researched and constructed images in two parts, with the first released in 2010. Reminiscent of Sergey Larenkov’s Ghosts of WWII series, in which archived photographs of war damage were mixed with modern photos of the same sites, Clover’s images display the regeneration of one of America’s greatest cities.

The color photographs of modern-day scenes in the city contrast with the black-and-white images of destruction – buildings half-collapsed, damaged roads revealing yawning subterranean pits, facades blackened, trolleys smashed.

“To put these photos together, I first create a catalog of historical photos that look like they have potential to be blended,” says Clover on his website. “Unfortunately most of these photos end up on the digital cutting room floor because there’s simply no way to get the same photo today because either a building or a tree is in the way.”

“Once I get a good location, I get everything lined up just right. My goal is to stand in the exact spot where the original photographer stood. Doing this needs to take into account equivalent focal length, how the lens was shifted, light conditions, etc. I take plenty of shots, each nudged around a bit at each location. Just moving one foot to the left changes everything.”

If you believe there’s beauty in destruction and a special kind of hope in disaster, Steve McGhee‘s art will speak to you. The Canadian illustrator’s imagination gives birth to tragedy, calamity, and adversity. These misadventures would be shockingly tragic if they ever actually occurred…but luckily for all of us, they only take place in McGhee’s mind.

Born and raised in London, Ontario, McGhee knew from an early age that he was lucky enough to have natural artistic talent. After a rather disturbing phase of designing horrifying “torture houses” as a child, the artist turned to more benign forms of art, sketching superheroes and action figures.

In college, McGhee tried out animation, but decided it wasn’t for him. He moved his focus to studying design and advertising, and it was in college that he developed his now-superb Photoshop skills. But rather than following the school’s schedule for learning the program, Steve simply sneaked into higher-level classes to learn at a faster rate.

After college, McGhee found work in design and advertising, but he never lost his taste for the darker side of life. His professional work is high-quality, but he really shines in the art he creates just for fun. The personal work he posts on his website reflects the artist’s natural talent as well as the skills he’s acquired over his many years of working.

These personal pieces frequently focus on the darker side of life, on what can go wrong at any given moment. They are visions of the post-apocalyptic world, predictions for what might happen in our future, be it near or far. They’re the worst-case scenario, the things we hope will never actually happen.

Why focus on the seemingly negative? Why spend so much energy creating art that only brings to mind the unpleasant things that most of us would rather not think about? McGhee’s answer is rather simple: it all has to do with the innocence that such tragedy can inspire.

He brings up the days following the September 11 attacks: reporters ran out of words and were simply unable to say anything more than the pictures were already saying about the unspeakable tragedy unfolding before us. In the days surrounding the attacks, we all banded together in a sort of awed silence, letting our words be replaced with a strange fellowship most of us had never before experienced. We were returned to a primal state where all we wanted was comfort and reassurance.

As an artist, McGhee hopes to inspire the same kind of innocent silence. His images of destruction aren’t particularly macabre or shocking; they simply depict moments of extremes that most of us will, thankfully, never have to live through. The digital paintings weren’t meant to inspire terror or even sadness. They are neutral speculative histories of imaginary disasters, meant to bring the viewer back to a primal state of mind where all we can do is observe.

His inspiration, according to the artist, usually comes from simply imagining something awful. He composes a disaster in his mind and imagines how it would look on television news and in the newspapers. He strives to recapture that momentary sense of collective awe that, for better or worse, always seems to punctuate moments of tragedy.

Of course, not all of McGhee’s art depicts the moment that the unthinkable happens. He creates a fair amount of art that shows the aftermath of awful things, but in a gentle and curious way. These post-apocalyptic pieces are perhaps even more arresting than those which show explosions, crashes and giant whirlpools; their matter-of-fact imagery speaks of the calm and rebirth that often follows those moments of unfathomable disaster.