Once we either kick oil for good or descend into Mad Maxish fuel-based anarchy, you’re going to want to set up a pretty good personal Thunderdome. And if we’re way past peak oil anyway, why not nest in an abandoned oil silo? Architecture collective Pink Cloud has designed a sustainable home for a post-petroleum world, repurposing the 49,000 refinery oil silos that will, one day in the not-too-distant future, be otherwise pointless.
PinkCloud designed the Oil Silo Home to create more energy than it uses, with solar panels, natural lighting, and passive heating and cooling. And with its “strong structural rigidity, flexible suspension, waterproof shell, and aerodynamic design,” it could presumably endure whatever extreme weather events might be in store in future decades. According to PinkCloud, these silos could be decontaminated and retrofitted on site, transforming entire refineries into sustainable communities.
I’m not sure I’d want to live in an oil silo, even a decontaminated one, which these would be — PinkCloud imagines detoxifying the structures with microbes that eat oil and excrete “harmless” CO2. (Hey, if it’s already a post-oil apocalypse, I guess a little more greenhouse gas won’t hurt.) But I would freakin’ LOVE to live in a crazy sphere. And PinkCloud has some convincing-looking pretty slides showing that the silo homes — or, more accurately, silo multi-family units — would be cheaper and more energy-efficient than conventional homes of equivalent size.
