Survivalism, or the business of fear

The sense of an uncertain future — ecological and demographic pressure, the prospect of war or of globalised economic collapse — has given rise to the “survivalist” movement. Its followers are already preparing to survive in post-apocalyptic conditions. Their premise is that a catastrophe — nuclear, climatic, civil war — is inevitable, and that only those who have prepared for it, alone or in groups, will survive and perhaps rebuild some form of post-civilisation.

“Preppers” rather than paranoiacs

This subculture, born in the United States, gathers a wide range of currents: radical ecology, degrowth, anti-capitalism, Malthusianism, messianism. Survivalists reject the label of paranoiacs or doom-mongers, presenting themselves instead as environmentalists in search of alternative communities where genuinely utopian societies might be possible. Steeped in Hollywood imagery, they call for the very apocalypse that will make a better world possible, having wiped the past clean. To shake off their poor image they now call themselves “preppers” — the prepared.

Among them, know-how matters more than equipment: they believe their skills will earn them a place in the communities of survivors after civilisation collapses. So they learn, among other things, to grow vegetables, bake bread, treat wounds and build shelters. Their numbers keep rising, estimated at two to three million in the United States by National Geographic, which devotes a reality show to the subject.

Paradoxically, survivalists are over-consumers: they buy survival kits by the armful, sometimes decades' worth of tinned food, then complain of “pre-apocalyptic depression” when their predictions fail to materialise. The movement is also criticised for its resignation in the face of what it fears, and for its selfish pursuit of solitary survival — treating other people as potential looters, without any attempt to change the course of events.

Often covered through a lens of sensationalism, the movement nonetheless puts a hard question to architecture, in its most primal purpose: protection against a hostile environment, whether natural or human. From the prehistoric cave to the kasbah — the fortified Moroccan earthen citadel — from the castle keep to the gated community.

The self-sufficient base

Survivalists broadly agree that cities are the most vulnerable places, and that salvation lies in the countryside — ideally in wholly isolated areas offering the possibility of an autonomous, self-contained way of life. The objective is to meet the needs of the community or the individual with no contact whatsoever with an outside world deemed hostile.

The movement's ground rules are autonomy, access to water and arable land, access to renewable energy, stockpiles of tinned food and medicine, and the means of self-defence. In francophone survivalist circles these take the form of a Base Autonome Durable (BAD) — a “sustainable autonomous base”, the counterpart of the anglophone bug-out location. These bases, often sited high in the mountains to guard against earthquakes or floods, presuppose buildings that are energy self-sufficient, with photovoltaics preferred over wind, which is less discreet. Camouflage and integration into the surroundings are major preoccupations of the movement.

The great vital necessity remains access to water: rainwater collection basins serve the vegetable garden and domestic tasks; for drinking water, a purifier is required. The base is often simply a bunkered farm, in which all external inputs are avoided — petrochemical fertilisers, pesticides, even seed. Permaculture and compost made from local waste allow life in a short, closed cycle. Seed reserves are supposed to be the currency of the post-apocalyptic future.

The most extreme also plan for shelters against nuclear attack or other categories of disaster, and for weapons. Against the classic bunker, the preferred option remains the cheap shipping container, fitted out and buried. Low-tech equipment is favoured: it does not break down and needs little or no outside intervention.

When architects scent an opportunity

Survivalists tend to be do-it-yourself people and rarely call on architects. For the more impatient or the wealthier, however, some architects have scented the opportunity and specialised in the architecture of autonomous bases and bunkers. The most emblematic is the American Robert Vicino, who has built some thirty bunkers with capacities of 50 to 1,000 people, designed to withstand any catastrophe for at least a year. His anxiety-driven business is thriving: entry to the bunkers costs 50,000 dollars. His marketing, built on fear of tomorrow and on the myth of Noah's Ark, has earned his company tens of millions of dollars and won followers around the world. He has even set out to sequence and preserve the DNA of all living things.

And in Morocco?

In Morocco, survivalism has few followers: survival is already a tangible everyday concept here. A handful of wealthy individuals do quietly ask their architects to provide buried shelters, along with surveillance and protection systems that are close to military. Others cluster their country houses together, recreating communities by friendship or family affinity in the middle of nowhere.

This elite back-to-the-land movement is often driven by a wish for calm, quiet, simple things and a healthy life — and, consciously or not, by a fallback position against a city life judged increasingly hostile. There are no studies on the subject in Morocco, but the fear of a third world war, of economic or ecological collapse, and neo-Darwinian ideology, are spreading everywhere in the world. And with them, the demand for survivalist architects.