Building the SD.Net Bunker (RAR)

[Crossroads Inc.]

Agreeing with much of the above post. The best way to keep someone sane, is keep them busy. And in our situation there should be LOTS to do. But play is just as important as work, and "keeping busy" should not just be doing simple chores.

if we do choose the mines in VA, we will have PLENTY of space open to us for all manor of uses. Lets remember, we arn't just making a bunker, we are going to be making a whole underground city of sorts. We should keep in mind the things that keep us sane above ground for underground.

Schools, Museums, Movies, Bars, Shopping (yes we should have an eocnomy as well, money and such). I'd invite everyone ot look at a modern "underground city" in Montreal which, while not built like a bunker, shows you can live underground and not have to go stir crazy.

[Broomstick]

The corridors between the bedrooms could stand to be a bit wider, because at the moment it looks as if two people couldn't walk abreast through them, and the dining area probably needs a little more elbow room. Otherwise that looks pretty good, though not something I'd personally choose to live in.

I took the measurements from my current living accommodations, then added some more space. Those hallways actually wider than they appear, and part of the illusion is that the doorways are also wider than standard – remember, I said I made them wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair if necessary. The areas aren't truly totally disability-accessible but someone injured could get in and out of these spaces (they'd be sleeping on a lower bunk, obviously). The hallways are actually on the wider end of residential standard in the US.

And keep in mind – this is the densest living unit I'm proposing. Everything else is more spacious.

You are missing one very important thing in those rooms Broomstick. Desks. It's a workspace, a place to read, a place to operate your computer, and a place to personalize. Everyone should have a desk! It's just not your space until you have a desk.

Crap, I don't think I owned a desk until I was 43 or so... but then I owned an entire apartment/flat by the time I was 20 so yeah, not quite the same thing. OK, point taken, but I'm not sure I want to redesign the bedrooms yet again – really, you can have an assigned space of your own for work projects outside of your sleeping quarters. I'll keep that in mind, maybe make an “office pod” or something. People really should use their bedrooms for sleeping, not working.

Another thing: clothes. Honestly in this sort of situation I don't really see us keeping our entire wardrobes, and the laundry room you have in there does not seem necessary. What would be more efficient is a laundry service where you drop off your dirty clothes in a bag with your name on it, and it's returned the next day cleaned and folded.

I understand what you're saying, but again, efficiency may be less important than redundancy. For damn sure some of the appliances are going to die before 10 years are up. Would really suck if something major went wrong with the main laundry, wouldn't it? By making washing facilities available people can, wow, take responsibility for their own stuff instead of having to assign yet one more menial task to someone, and it spreads out the laundry facilities so one bad thing won't have us all washing our underwear in the sink for the next eight years.

A larger, more industrial laundry facility would be a good idea for, say, linens for the medical pod (in fact, I'd even suggest making it a part of the medical pod) or other major users but regular folks can take care of their own clothes. We may have to resettle the world in 10 years, we need to keep people thinking in terms of self-sufficiency and taking care of their own stuff at the same time we're promoting community and cooperation.

My thoughts about the kitchen: if you're housing a bunch of mostly male teenagers - young adults, don't expect them to cook. The kitchen will be mostly for snacks, microwaveable meals, and the occasional culinary adventure. Instead, expect 90% of the meals to be eaten in the dining halls.

Except there's no reason we couldn't have a dorm pod with mostly female teenagers/young adults. It could be a group of post 25 year old adults. It could be a mix of people.

Keep in mind, too, that the “kitchen pod” could also be attached to less dense living spaces, perhaps shared by two families (we do have families on SD.net)

And, again – if the main industrial sized kitchen breaks down the kitchen pods will serve as backup. And why not make provision for “culinary adventures”? As noted, keeping people busy and morale up will be vital. Hell, I don't care if the dorm decides to “cater” meals by “take away” from the dining hall, or do their own cooking, or subsist on MRE's. That's why I've also been mentioning hot plates, slow cookers, and so on. We really do want to keep options open for people. I'd expect cooking fads to come and go over a decade, with people cycling from eating nothing but pre-packaged to cooking from scratch and back again several times.

Frankly, if people actually were cooking everything from scratch the kitchen pod as depicted wouldn't be adequate. We'll need some “industrial” kitchens for processing raw materials into foods like pasta or flour anyway.

One TV is not enough for 24 people. While watching whatever you want in your own room at your desk (hint hint) is an option, sometimes you want to watch a movie with friends and someone has already hogged the TV.

Ya know – this is a survival bunker, not a luxury condo. I expect there will be a lot of laptops and small scale computers around. The big screen would be for parties and things like “townhall” type meetings and news as much as for entertainment. And ya'll will just have to learn how to share a little bit.

Jeepers, when I was in a college dorm we had one TV per floor – that was about one per forty people. It IS possible to share, especially as there will be ample other facilities for your entertainment. You may have to get off your butt and walk down the hallway to get to them, but you need the exercise anyway. These are not jail cells, people will be able to wander around at will unless there's some sort of emergency. In fact, the last thing we want people to do is sit in their bedroom all day, that's just not healthy. By forcing people to get up and move around you promote physical and mental health.

Here's what I'd suggest for the dorm area to fix some of these problems. Two rooms, assigned to four people.

I'll be designing two and four person accommodations, in addition to the single-person one on page 2 of this thread, and some family arrangements as we will want to keep families together as much as possible (well, until the kids mature into late teen years and its appropriate for them to be treated as adults)

If at all possible (which it is) we should give each room its own sink, as things like brushing teeth, getting some water, washing hands (you do want to make it really convenient for people to wash their hands in these confined and sickly quarters) and such can be distributed instead of taking up bathroom space.

The four-person dorm units have been redesigned with a sink and a small table area.

Remember that this is not the same as a college dorm or a military barracks. This is the place that you are going to be (almost) every night for ten years.

Except you don't – there will be other forms of accommodations, you will be allowed to relocate, you are not locked into one bunk bed for ten years.

As for things for people to do... there will be plenty to do! Plenty of menial jobs that is. We need people to clean, people to wash clothes, people to wash dishes, people to cook huge batches of meals in the dining halls, people to fix broken lights and broken TVs and broken furniture and broken sinks, people to stock the convenience store pod with soap and shampoo and toothpaste and kleenex and sticky notes and pens, people to take out the trash and sort the trash and recycle things and wash out bottles for reuse, people to move things from point A to point B, and so on and so forth.

And everyone, from highest to lowest, should be required to do some of that menial work, and rotate their assignments. This will also cut down on abuses, as those who have to clean up the messes are less inclined to make them in the first place. In fact, any egregious transgressions of social norms in regards to cleanliness and order should probably entail a stint on nasty clean-up duty for longer than the usual rotation period.

There will be a very small minority, 5% maybe, of people who are actually going to be engaging in thinking work.

Only if we let that happen. There is no reason we can't require educational pursuits along with menial chores. There is no reason we can't require 10 or 20 hours of research/education per week just as we'd require scrubbing toilets. Nor does it all have to be sedentary – there are martial/fighting arts to be learned, learning to use tools, dance, language lessons, exercise classes.... everyone should wind up learning, and everyone should wind up teaching at some point.

And even then, it'll be stuff like managing the hydroponics garden and ensuring that it provides a steady output of food

>snort< I visit my hydroponics set up once every 3-4 days for, at most, an hour. It's not that hard. Yes, we'll have a much larger set up and because we'll actually be dependent on it to some degree it will require more labor, but trust me, a LOT of that is grunt labor.

That, and because everyone will have a stake in the garden and probably do some time there we might want to have periodic voting in regards to what and how much of what is grown there. We'll have to have a chief farmer or agriculturalist, or perhaps a committee of three, to keep things from getting nuts and act as primary coordinators but we really want everyone to learn as much as possible about running the Bunker. Why? Because accidents happen, people get ill or injured, and a it's possible someone might just up and die for no discernible reason. We must cross train because over ten years there will be inevitable losses.

We might have two doctors and two dentists, each with two assistants. We might have five police officers, with another 20 part-time. But we're going to have a full-time maintenance staff of like 200.

Yes, and the docs and dentists and their assistants will be spending part of their time training potential replacements.

And the “maintenance staff” will be all 1,000 people. Some folks will have more of that duty than others, but everyone needs to help out with it in order to keep the place running.

[Broomstick]

OK, I redesigned the “bathroom pod”, added another toilet/sink, a “primping area” so the anyone who wants to spend hours on hair and make up can do so without annoying others, added a few cosmetic details, and re-arranged the storage space.

Here is a view from above:


On the left is the modified four-person bedroom, which now has a sink and table area. I still think people should be encouraged to go elsewhere to eat, work, whatever but having a spot in the bedroom does make some sense (and of course folks are free to disagree with me on that point as well).

Some of the details have washed out with the conversion to JPG format (and I reduced the size as well, as the originals were MUCH larger) but I expect folks can figure out the toilets, sinks, showers, tub, and so forth. Again, I have not installed doors, there's enough visual clutter already.


Here we have an angled view:


I used glass block in the shower unit walls, and some frosted-type glass for the tub area just to break up the monotony and, oh yeah, make it obvious which units are in use and which aren't, add a little more light to the area, and so on. And because I could. The “primping area” is on the lower right, with the red chairs and somewhat away from the other sinks so hours-long sessions there shouldn't disturb others who want to use the facilities. The closet space is a little more obvious in this view. I considered urinals, and I think that would be a good idea for toilet areas down near the gym/exercise areas, but figured the guys could use the toilets. If it's all guys they can just leave the seats up. If it's a mixed group they may or may not want to designate some toilets as boy or girl, or maybe they'll just not care since, after all, there will be doors installed. If my leaving them out really is causing issue with anyone let me know, I can install them easily.


And one more view:

Little bit better view of the “primping” area as well as the shower and tub areas. They washed out a bit, but all three bathing areas have shelf units in them.

By the way – if anyone else has Sketchup and wants to use the components I've worked up for this let me know. You'll have to explain how to share them because I've only had the software about a week and a half and haven't figured that particular skill out yet, but there's not reason we can't all play with the lego blocks, is there? By the way – Sketchup has a freeware version, if anyone is interested in trying it out. Just go up to Google, and there are also tutorials as well.

[Eternal_Freedom]

We also need to consider what form of organisation we would have in this bunker. Namely, who is responsible for what and who is in charge of what.

[Zixinus]

Just a thought: we should make "emergency chests" in case there is a cave-in or other failure.

Chest should contain a heavy-duty (in contents) first-aid kit, a handful of the headlamps I linked previously (seriously, head lamps that can be cranked = great utility), firefighting stuff (definitely an extinguisher), small digging tools and perhaps oxygen candles (or something to battle CO2).
EDIT: Oh, and if we are going to have a nuclear reactor, a few gas masks or dust mask & safety goggles with a box full of iodine tablets may too be prudent.

As for desks in your dorm: is the place a barracks or your room? While I agree that there should be some call for getting people around, there is some thought in allowing people to study in their own rooms or do small work.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Yeah this is supposed to be a Forum wide effort, we can't just dump everything on Broom to design the whole base (though he is doing a HELL of a good job). Part of what I worry about is a 'too many cooks' thing going on. We can't all be pushing our ideas on Broom and asking him to change things every few minutes, we should contact some of the other artists and 3d users. When I get home tonight I'm going to run up some sketches for some Pod ideas of my own.

Things people should understand is this is ONE pod concept, there are going to be many many variations.

Also, while large areas are good, the fundimental concept is to be able to do things on your own as needed. Sure most of the time laundry can be done at central areas. Sure cooking and food will usually be done at large mess halls, but if needed you want to be able to do things in private as well. Having a Pod with many scaled down versions of things elsewhere adds a bit more privacy to those that need it. The same goes for things like TV and entertainment. For the most part peole would go to larger communial areas for video games or TV or LAN games etc, but when needed much more scaled down versions can be found in a Pod, so you don't need nearly as much.

As for desks in your dorm: is the place a barracks or your room? While I agree that there should be some call for getting people around, there is some thought in allowing people to study in their own rooms or do small work.

Addressed a bit, but I would deely suggest people think of a Pod as your 'room'. We need to keep things effective and simple. The room is for sleeping and storage, study can be done in the Pods rec room. One of the Pod ideas I have is for a study area with rivate study rooms. Also Brooms newest design DID allow for a small desk inside the sleeping room. but just to keep things simple, I would suggest people think of a Pod as your 'room" and not the actuall living area.

Moving on from that...

I would like to establish a proper council for this project. Broom is doing kickass work on his own, but we need to get other asects organized. I'm going to PM Shep about more info about his mining location, and we may also want to bring in more members froms the MESS who have experiance in living in dorms and barracks about how best to lay things out.

[Eternal_Freedom]

When i posted the question about organisation, I actually meant what kind of organisation we would have when we're in the bunker, rather than for designing it.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Broom, I think that new bedroom design is a real winner. Its a place where you can spend as little or as much time as you want with a good amount of privacy and still allowing for people to go elsewhere to do computer-work and socializing. A sink and desks help a lot, but you're right in that it probably doesn't need a toilet.

BTW, Crossroads- Broomstick is a woman, and you should probably switch to female pronouns.

[Hawkwings]

First of all, my intent isn't to make Broomstick draw my ideas. It's to share my ideas and have a discussion about them. I may do some drawings of my own eventually, but I don't think having a discussion about the placement of doorways and the way a room should be arranged (as it will probably devolve into) is very fun.

Crap, I don't think I owned a desk until I was 43 or so... but then I owned an entire apartment/flat by the time I was 20 so yeah, not quite the same thing. OK, point taken, but I'm not sure I want to redesign the bedrooms yet again – really, you can have an assigned space of your own for work projects outside of your sleeping quarters. I'll keep that in mind, maybe make an “office pod” or something. People really should use their bedrooms for sleeping, not working.

You may not have owned a desk, but you had a table where you did work right? That counts. The whole sleep/work in one room thing I understand, and maybe it's just my viewpoint having not owned an apartment or house of my own ever.

I understand what you're saying, but again, efficiency may be less important than redundancy. For damn sure some of the appliances are going to die before 10 years are up. Would really suck if something major went wrong with the main laundry, wouldn't it? By making washing facilities available people can, wow, take responsibility for their own stuff instead of having to assign yet one more menial task to someone, and it spreads out the laundry facilities so one bad thing won't have us all washing our underwear in the sink for the next eight years.

Crossroads makes a good point and I have the same thoughts. We should have the laundromats that do your laundry and everyone else's, but there should be excess capacity in distributed locations for redundancy.

Except there's no reason we couldn't have a dorm pod with mostly female teenagers/young adults. It could be a group of post 25 year old adults. It could be a mix of people.

Considering the demographics of SDNet, most of the living facilities will be filled by youngish males. Of course considering the OP we also run into the problem of spouses, children, etc not being present, extreme gender imbalance, and all the trouble that entails. I'll just assume that it's SDNet + others, coming out to 1000 people total, as those other problems are really tangential to the point of this thread.

Keep in mind, too, that the “kitchen pod” could also be attached to less dense living spaces, perhaps shared by two families (we do have families on SD.net)

And, again – if the main industrial sized kitchen breaks down the kitchen pods will serve as backup. And why not make provision for “culinary adventures”? As noted, keeping people busy and morale up will be vital. Hell, I don't care if the dorm decides to “cater” meals by “take away” from the dining hall, or do their own cooking, or subsist on MRE's. That's why I've also been mentioning hot plates, slow cookers, and so on. We really do want to keep options open for people. I'd expect cooking fads to come and go over a decade, with people cycling from eating nothing but pre-packaged to cooking from scratch and back again several times.

Frankly, if people actually were cooking everything from scratch the kitchen pod as depicted wouldn't be adequate. We'll need some “industrial” kitchens for processing raw materials into foods like pasta or flour anyway.

All I'm saying is that I would expect the dining halls to have to feed nearly everybody almost every day. Barring special occasions and the odd cooking guru (who is probably going to be working in the kitchen all day), who is going to spend time and effort cooking when there is ready-made food available? The kitchen as it stands in that 24-person dorm is fine because I don't expect it to be heavily used. As you note, it's too small for 24 people to feed themselves in a timely fashion.

Ya know – this is a survival bunker, not a luxury condo. I expect there will be a lot of laptops and small scale computers around. The big screen would be for parties and things like “townhall” type meetings and news as much as for entertainment. And ya'll will just have to learn how to share a little bit.

Jeepers, when I was in a college dorm we had one TV per floor – that was about one per forty people. It IS possible to share, especially as there will be ample other facilities for your entertainment. You may have to get off your butt and walk down the hallway to get to them, but you need the exercise anyway. These are not jail cells, people will be able to wander around at will unless there's some sort of emergency. In fact, the last thing we want people to do is sit in their bedroom all day, that's just not healthy. By forcing people to get up and move around you promote physical and mental health.

After a hard day's work scrubbing floors, I know that I'm not going to want to come home to find my roommate who skipped off work 5 minutes early has taken the TV and I have to go down to the rec room where it's noisy and there's lots of people around to sit in a cushy couch and watch re-runs of my favorite show.

Except you don't – there will be other forms of accommodations, you will be allowed to relocate, you are not locked into one bunk bed for ten years.

But wouldn't you want people to like where they live and not have to move every so often because they just couldn't stand it anymore? Everyone's going to want the spacious quarters with their own private bath and whatnot, but that's just not possible to give. A bit of luxury would go a long way in making people happier.

And everyone, from highest to lowest, should be required to do some of that menial work, and rotate their assignments. This will also cut down on abuses, as those who have to clean up the messes are less inclined to make them in the first place. In fact, any egregious transgressions of social norms in regards to cleanliness and order should probably entail a stint on nasty clean-up duty for longer than the usual rotation period.

Agreed. I imagine sewage clog clearing duty would be reserved for especially heinous offenses.

Only if we let that happen. There is no reason we can't require educational pursuits along with menial chores. There is no reason we can't require 10 or 20 hours of research/education per week just as we'd require scrubbing toilets. Nor does it all have to be sedentary – there are martial/fighting arts to be learned, learning to use tools, dance, language lessons, exercise classes.... everyone should wind up learning, and everyone should wind up teaching at some point.

Thinking work, not thinking activities. As in, work critical to the continued survival and health of the bunker. Treating illnesses would be thinking work. Cross-training should be mandatory, but demanding that everyone must take up a hobby or something is going a bit far. Not everyone is going to want to learn for the sake of learning, and while creating a better society is a worthy goal, it's not of primary importance.

>snort< I visit my hydroponics set up once every 3-4 days for, at most, an hour. It's not that hard. Yes, we'll have a much larger set up and because we'll actually be dependent on it to some degree it will require more labor, but trust me, a LOT of that is grunt labor.

Just an example, but one that was apparently poorly chosen. Should have just stuck with doctor treating the sick.

That, and because everyone will have a stake in the garden and probably do some time there we might want to have periodic voting in regards to what and how much of what is grown there. We'll have to have a chief farmer or agriculturalist, or perhaps a committee of three, to keep things from getting nuts and act as primary coordinators but we really want everyone to learn as much as possible about running the Bunker. Why? Because accidents happen, people get ill or injured, and a it's possible someone might just up and die for no discernible reason. We must cross train because over ten years there will be inevitable losses.

This touches on the point of how this whole thing should be governed. I'd hesitate to introduce too much democracy, but there must be a mechanism for hearing and responding to the will of the people. But if we're going to get into politics we should start a new thread.

Oh, and about cave-ins... With this size of a complex, if we get any cave-ins on the scale of needing emergency oxygen then we're pretty much screwed.

[Lonestar]

I would like to establish a proper council for this project. Broom is doing kickass work on his own, but we need to get other asects organized. I'm going to PM Shep about more info about his mining location, and we may also want to bring in more members froms the MESS who have experiance in living in dorms and barracks about how best to lay things out.

4 words: Health and Comfort inspections. Again and again. I would treat it like a deployment where you have a H&C inspection every day except perhaps Sunday. It might seem rough, but there are a lot of people on this board who I suspect will be the dirty motherfucker making the berthing unlivable.

I also reiterate that we should have a number of dispersed Vaults rather than one big one.

[aerius]

4 words: Health and Comfort inspections. Again and again. I would treat it like a deployment where you have a H&C inspection every day except perhaps Sunday. It might seem rough, but there are a lot of people on this board who I suspect will be the dirty motherfucker making the berthing unlivable.

I think anyone who's ever lived in a dorm will tell you that there's a lot of filthy motherfuckers out there. I've seen cleaner pigsties than some of the rooms in my university dorm building.

[Zaune]

I took the measurements from my current living accommodations, then added some more space. Those hallways actually wider than they appear, and part of the illusion is that the doorways are also wider than standard – remember, I said I made them wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair if necessary. The areas aren't truly totally disability-accessible but someone injured could get in and out of these spaces (they'd be sleeping on a lower bunk, obviously). The hallways are actually on the wider end of residential standard in the US.

And keep in mind – this is the densest living unit I'm proposing. Everything else is more spacious.

Duly noted; at first glance it appeared that they were standard-width doorways. What are the actual dimensions, by the way? It still looks to my eye as if turning an ambulance-style trolley at one of those junctions would be tricky, and at some point someone is going to need to make a fast trip to the infirmary on one.

Ya know – this is a survival bunker, not a luxury condo. I expect there will be a lot of laptops and small scale computers around. The big screen would be for parties and things like “townhall” type meetings and news as much as for entertainment. And ya'll will just have to learn how to share a little bit.

Jeepers, when I was in a college dorm we had one TV per floor – that was about one per forty people. It IS possible to share, especially as there will be ample other facilities for your entertainment. You may have to get off your butt and walk down the hallway to get to them, but you need the exercise anyway. These are not jail cells, people will be able to wander around at will unless there's some sort of emergency. In fact, the last thing we want people to do is sit in their bedroom all day, that's just not healthy. By forcing people to get up and move around you promote physical and mental health.

The fact is, there's going to be an upper limit to what we can actually provide in a completely closed system without access to natural daylight.

I personally feel that a far better solution to the problem of boredom and claustrophobia is to keep our time sealed in the shelter as short as reasonably practical, and start putting up surface dwellings at the earliest possible moment. Ideally we'd never actually move in down there at all, depending on the nature of the catastrophe; if it's a zombie apocalypse or something then ideally we'd never move down there permanently in the first place, but instead treat it as a fall-back position in the event that the outer perimeter was compromised.
This approach would also give us more options for working with any local groups of survivors, instead of having to worry about fighting them off. In fact, the more spare capacity we can build into the project the better, even if it's just tents and MREs for latecomers.

[Broomstick]

I don't mind the health inspections provided we have something less that the reputed military requirements (as a civilian I don't have first hand experience, but it's my understanding it's a pretty fucking high standard). While I'm all for discipline this is not, as pointed out, a military installation. As long as it's not a health hazard and you're not causing problems for others (like intruding into their space or leaving your crap all over common areas) that's good enough for me. I don't care if the bed isn't perfectly made or if the underwear is folded properly - one of the reason for drawers and cabinets is so you can close the door on whatever mess is behind it.

I have been thinking over what folks have said in regards to living accommodations, which is giving me new ideas. More on those in a bit - as tomorrow is Monday and I do have stuff I need to do the drawings may come a little slower but I doubt that will be a huge problem for anyone.

I'm thinking we should maybe limit the shelter size to 250, making four for the total 1,000? But design the shelters for 300, which should be sufficient extra capacity. Or, if folks want greater capacity, or two 500 person shelters, that's also fine with me.

We can always excuse something by saying "by an act of Q..." - just remember he's a tricky devil.

[Broomstick]

All I'm saying is that I would expect the dining halls to have to feed nearly everybody almost every day. Barring special occasions and the odd cooking guru (who is probably going to be working in the kitchen all day), who is going to spend time and effort cooking when there is ready-made food available?

Anyone who requires a specialized diet for medical reasons. Although most of SD.net is young males there are a number of us who are older and/or have medical needs. Anyhow - the kitchens are an option. If some of them are seldom used that's perfectly fine. Some of us will use them.

One of the challenges of a project like this is designing not for yourself but for everyone else as well. Different people, different needs, different desires, different tolerances.

[Broomstick]

I took the measurements from my current living accommodations, then added some more space. Those hallways actually wider than they appear, and part of the illusion is that the doorways are also wider than standard – remember, I said I made them wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair if necessary. The areas aren't truly totally disability-accessible but someone injured could get in and out of these spaces (they'd be sleeping on a lower bunk, obviously). The hallways are actually on the wider end of residential standard in the US.

And keep in mind – this is the densest living unit I'm proposing. Everything else is more spacious.

Duly noted; at first glance it appeared that they were standard-width doorways. What are the actual dimensions, by the way? It still looks to my eye as if turning an ambulance-style trolley at one of those junctions would be tricky, and at some point someone is going to need to make a fast trip to the infirmary on one.

Yes, a medical trolley might be a bit tricky in some spots.

The doors are a minimum of 32 inches wide (specified as minimum for wheelchairs in the US) which is just a bit over 81cm. The ceiling heights are 8 feet, or 244cm. Hallways are a minimum of 36 inches wide, or 91cm.

I personally feel that a far better solution to the problem of boredom and claustrophobia is to keep our time sealed in the shelter as short as reasonably practical, and start putting up surface dwellings at the earliest possible moment. Ideally we'd never actually move in down there at all, depending on the nature of the catastrophe; if it's a zombie apocalypse or something then ideally we'd never move down there permanently in the first place, but instead treat it as a fall-back position in the event that the outer perimeter was compromised.

This approach would also give us more options for working with any local groups of survivors, instead of having to worry about fighting them off. In fact, the more spare capacity we can build into the project the better, even if it's just tents and MREs for latecomers.

The only problem is that we don't know what the catastrophe is and we don't know if we'll be able to safely leave the shelter for any of those 10 years. So, prepare for the worst but hope for better.

[Agent Fisher]

On the subject of security inside the vaults, cameras in hallways, card access for certain areas ( control room, power, life support operations, pharmacy), and about 30 to 42 officers for one of the 250/300 bed vaults. That gives you between 10 to 14 officers per shift. They'd be used to discourage thefts and assaults and things of that nature. Ten years is a long time to be cooped up with the same people. Problems will creep up. In addition to those things, you've also have the problem of accidents leading to mental illness that ends up in aggressive behavior. And unless you're willing to use restraints and/or chemical restraints all the time, you're gonna need guards on them to keep them from hurting themselves and medical staff.

[Broomstick]

OK, by request (sort of) a 2-person bedroom unit.

Top view:


Other views:



The beds are singles, with storage above and below, the same closet as before, a desk/work area, a sink and a table area with a little more storage on top.

You'd link a bunch of these together with a hallway leading to other "pods" like the bathroom and kitchen ones already depicted.

[Lonestar]

I don't mind the health inspections provided we have something less that the reputed military requirements (as a civilian I don't have first hand experience, but it's my understanding it's a pretty fucking high standard). While I'm all for discipline this is not, as pointed out, a military installation. As long as it's not a health hazard and you're not causing problems for others (like intruding into their space or leaving your crap all over common areas) that's good enough for me. I don't care if the bed isn't perfectly made or if the underwear is folded properly - one of the reason for drawers and cabinets is so you can close the door on whatever mess is behind it.

I think you get your idea of H&C Inspections from movies that have boot camp in them. The aren't that. They are just daily inspections of Berthing to make sure the places aren't complete shitboxes.

On the subject of security inside the vaults, cameras in hallways, card access for certain areas ( control room, power, life support operations, pharmacy), and about 30 to 42 officers for one of the 250/300 bed vaults. That gives you between 10 to 14 officers per shift. They'd be used to discourage thefts and assaults and things of that nature. Ten years is a long time to be cooped up with the same people. Problems will creep up. In addition to those things, you've also have the problem of accidents leading to mental illness that ends up in aggressive behavior. And unless you're willing to use restraints and/or chemical restraints all the time, you're gonna need guards on them to keep them from hurting themselves and medical staff.

Everyone better keep their footlockers lock. If I had my druthers I wouldn't investigate any thefts unless someone has broken into a locked locker/drawer/room. We have better things to do than worry about than someone who left his fucking iPod out on the bed and had it stolen.

[Broomstick]

Unless it gets to be a pattern - the occasional loss/petty theft/whatever is one thing, but you have someone developing a bad habit and you ignore it you raise the possibility of folks taking matters into their own hands. That would not be a good development.

And yes - having locks on drawers, cabinets, and "bedrooms" is probably a very good idea, just to keep honest people honest.

[Mr Bean]

The doors are a minimum of 32 inches wide (specified as minimum for wheelchairs in the US) which is just a bit over 81cm. The ceiling heights are 8 feet, or 244cm. Hallways are a minimum of 36 inches wide, or 91cm.

OSHA requirements for Heath care facilities are 44 inches for wheelchair access areas. Thirty six inches are for business and the like. 48 is minimum requirement for all emergency room areas (You need to be able to pass patients and personnel through the same doors with room left over)
Here's the America's with Disabilities standards
http://www.ada.gov/reg3a.html#Anchor-Appendix-52467

[MKSheppard]

Seems the seam height for the region I found that mining map is about 48-60 inches (4-5 ft).

But we can have that increased in height. I mean it took only eight months to mine a 1.8 mile long seam that high. It won't take that long to remove another 24 inches of crap.

[CaptainChewbacca]

6 1/2 foot ceilings, eh? Hope nobody tall checks in, cuz once you add the flooring and carpet you've got about 6' of clearance. That's a bit claustrophobic.

[Broomstick]

The doors are a minimum of 32 inches wide (specified as minimum for wheelchairs in the US) which is just a bit over 81cm. The ceiling heights are 8 feet, or 244cm. Hallways are a minimum of 36 inches wide, or 91cm.

OSHA requirements for Heath care facilities are 44 inches for wheelchair access areas. Thirty six inches are for business and the like. 48 is minimum requirement for all emergency room areas (You need to be able to pass patients and personnel through the same doors with room left over)
Here's the America's with Disabilities standards
http://www.ada.gov/reg3a.html#Anchor-Appendix-52467

Yep, double-checked - 32 inch doorways are the minimum for areas like residences. The medical area will, of course, need wider hallways. I'm planning to make public areas more spacious in general. Thanks for the link.

I'm thinking that in some areas sliding doors might be a good space-saver, even if they are more complicated to install. The walls are built thick enough to accommodate a sliding door, that wouldn't be an issue.

Seems the seam height for the region I found that mining map is about 48-60 inches (4-5 ft).

But we can have that increased in height. I mean it took only eight months to mine a 1.8 mile long seam that high. It won't take that long to remove another 24 inches of crap.

6 1/2 foot ceilings, eh? Hope nobody tall checks in, cuz once you add the flooring and carpet you've got about 6' of clearance. That's a bit claustrophobic.

True. A 6.5 foot ceiling will leave most people claustrophobic to some extent, it's a foot and half lower than the typical standard ceiling. On top of that, we've got some members comfortably over 6 feet in height (183 cm).

In addition, you need to account for flooring, as Chewie notes, and you'll need room underneath to run plumbing. In addition, you'll need space above the ceiling to run wiring for overhead lights. Ventilation ducts need to run either above or below the living/work area. You'll need a "cave" height of 9-10 feet for each level of the Bunker.

My drawings have everything on a base that's a foot thick - that's to account for all that other crap that goes into building a place.

[Zixinus]

On actual bunker government, just a few thoughts:

Every unit (like what Broomstick designed) has one inspector who's responsibility is to make sure that everything is clean to reasonable standards, people do their work shifts, emergency equipment is OK, manages the small jobs around the unit and settles small disputes within the unit. Inspectors have master keys for everyone's room/pod (a bit confused by that) although may not enter anyone's room without their permission (make a small device that timelogs whenever the master key is taken for use) and is the first in line to report anything bad happening. He has also access to common-area camera feeds and a few emergency functions (siren, lockdown, power-shut-down etc). He can also keep someone under "house-arrest" custody until proper police officers arrive or inspect an event (but only for 24 hours and he may do it only 3 times, even if he is proven right).
Inspectors are voted in for 3 months only by the unit's inhabitants. He may chose up to only 2 assistants who have no additional power or privileges.

Unit master oversees 5 unit-inspectors. They are selected by the units under them, must have experience as unit inspectors and work for a year. They have more power, receive reports by police (as well as able to observe camera feed) and are also responsible for keeping utilities functional.

Overseers supervise 3 unit-masters, with authority over security in their respective units. These people have more elaborate elections and are elected for 3 years. However, it must be noted that they may not make law. They can be booted out by petitions that are signed by 55% of the people under the overseer.
There are three additional "special" overseers (that are elected by the other overseers) that do not oversee units but utilities:
- one engineering overseer, responsible for keeping power (this includes the nuclear reactor) and plumbing operational.
- one health overseer, responsible for the various farms, parks as well as medical facilities. They have the power to issue quarantine.
- one security overseer, chief of police essentially.

As for actual government, a Council is made. No parties, people can vote for members only. Council hold court every two weeks. They sanctify laws, but do not write laws themselves. They supervise overseers, as well as select special overseers. They also have a branch that handles accounting or anything else necessary for a functioning government.

The Debate Hall is what makes laws: they are composed of delegates chosen separably. A delegate represents five units. They make suggestions of laws and policies. They also select members for the panel of judges.


There. Very rough, likely some revision and detailing by someone who actually knows how governments work and how to prevent abuse.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Put this together in a few minutes this morning after waking up.
VERY rough idea for a "study hall" Pod.



The dark brown areas are private study booths. Each one would have a table, couple of chairs, blackbored with chalk (more long lasting then a white bored with dry erase markers) and outlets for laptops or anything else needed.

The light brown area up front by the main doors is an open study and rest area surrounded by 'open' bookshelves. The concept of open bookshelves is to let some books circulate throughout the vault. You pick up a book in one "open" area, read it, and put it back in another so the books move around. Naturally people would volunteer what books go on an "open" shelf, so important stuff from the official library isn't lost.

The large central room is a lecture hall / meeting rooms for large groups, giving lectures or presentations and such.

The blue rooms in the back are bathrooms with two stalls each and a sink.

I know its crude but thought it good to start having concepts for other Pod ideas out there.