Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
concepts<br />
neighborhood burglar. His rooms are certified by the<br />
U.S. State Department and even underwritten by<br />
Lloyd’s of London as functional vaults. Appropriately,<br />
Alizade is currently embarking on a shift in business<br />
plan to focus on the more drastic needs of his clients<br />
in defense, infrastructure, and government. This<br />
includes fortifying nuclear power stations, U.S.<br />
embassies, and overseas military bases. The beauty<br />
of an Alizade safe room is that its panelized assembly<br />
requires no welding or even hammering; you could<br />
have the most secure room in the city bolted together<br />
in your house in near silence, and, next time you<br />
move, you can take the whole thing apart and bring<br />
it with you.<br />
For his own part, Gaffney is following the market<br />
and he, too, continues to push the boundaries—and<br />
scale—of home fortification. Gaffney pointed out<br />
that it is often inaccurate to refer to a safe room at<br />
all, because many clients are now fortifying their<br />
entire homes from the outside in. Total home fortification<br />
means replacing every window in a Manhattan<br />
brownstone with bulletproof glass, for example, and<br />
even adding a layer of anti-explosive film; it means<br />
nesting ballistic Kevlar plates behind drywall and, in<br />
extreme cases, using lead-lined Sheetrock to protect<br />
against radioactive attack. More recently, Gaffney<br />
added, he has been installing a number of positively<br />
pressurized, radiation-resistant, home air-filtration<br />
systems. In fact, the steep rise in orders for these in<br />
residences throughout New York City has taken<br />
Gaffney aback—but the perceived threat of biological<br />
and nuclear terrorism has led his clientele to seek<br />
adequate protection.<br />
Lana Corbi would call this approach a “safe core”:<br />
fortifying not just a closet-sized refuge into which a<br />
homeowner can crawl when things go south, but also<br />
a scalable network of rooms at the center of the home<br />
that can house multiple family members. The safe<br />
core could contain a refrigerator, wireless communication<br />
equipment, and even a week or two of food<br />
and water. Corbi reminded me that it’s not just burglars<br />
you might need protection from, but also<br />
extreme weather, natural disasters, and prolonged<br />
infrastructural failures such as blackouts. A<br />
well-prepped safe core is where you can ride out<br />
the turbulence—the longer, the better.<br />
If we can use the phrase “panic room,” then perhaps<br />
we should really be discussing a “panic house”:<br />
a safe blown up to the size of a home, and a home<br />
that is truly a castle, a fortress hiding in plain sight<br />
on a leafy Manhattan street or steep Los Angeles<br />
hillside near you.<br />
\While many home-fortification<br />
projects are designed<br />
primarily with burglary in mind,<br />
Al and Lana Corbi of SAFE<br />
recommend thinking about<br />
much broader risks—including<br />
the possibility of widespread<br />
social unrest, earthquakes, and<br />
even extreme weather events.<br />
88 SEPTEMBER <strong>2015</strong> DWELL
Change language