Post-Apoc 'Vernacular Architecture' - a more realistic approach?

[Manchu]

So no doubt the major visual influences on miniatures gamers when it comes to post-apoc terrain are Mad Max and Fallout. The architectural style of both emphasizes rebuilding from scavenged ruins. But what would new-material construction look like in a post-apoc world?

I think the major question is, did the apocalypse event devastate timber? If suitable wood is available, what would structures look like? The styles would certainly reflect the skill, or lack of skill, of the builders as well as the availability of tools. The ancient half-timber style (although it is likely to evoke Tudor England for many of us) is one possibility. If dimensional lumber is available, then "Old West" style buildings would be another possibility. Without timber, post-apoc denizens looking to build from scratch would need to look to either stone or mud.

Half-timbered, Dark Age stone, mudbrick, and Old West buildings are all widely available in several scales. But I have almost never seen such pieces used in post-apoc gaming. Are these styles simply too anchored in certain genres to convey the post apocalyptic feel? Maybe a return to these more rustic albeit less impromptu architectural solutions implies a setting too "far" past the apocalypse event?

[mysteriousbill]

Some combination of old and new would work well. A log cabin with a tin roof, a Western shanty combine with an attached shipping container for extra room, a wall with stacked stone in places, stacks of tires in others, you get the idea. I would add heavy shutters to the buildings, with loopholes.

[mysteriousbill]

I would remember that there is a lot more housing available than people. Maybe a pre-collapse house fortified up.

[Gimgamgoo]

I suppose it depends on the nature of the post apoc world. Are people staying in one place long enough to build? Are they in hiding in their living places?
In either of those two scenarios, you're not going to start building new things.

[nedius]

Also depends on when.

The infrastructure and skills base required to make a tudor style house doesn't exist TODAY, never mind in a post apocalyptic future.

If the setting is close to the event, even up to several decades or a century or two, people will be living in the ruins, repairing them as they can.

However, as modern style tools start to break, the likelihood of them being replaced is limited.

Let's take making a wooden house from scratch. You need an axe or saw to cut down the tree. Which means you need metal - an ore mine, a refining process and then the ability to shape it into a useful tool. In a post apocalyptic world, without the stable infrastructure that took millennia to come together, those things won't be available.

You'd need the agriculture to support a population who can devote them selves to mining, another to refining, and another to tool making, and have the time to learn how to do that essentially from scratch (let's assume no how to mine ore you-tube videos are available). Then you'd need well established trade routes - most ore isn't exactly lying around readily. Then, you need the knowledge to fell and work trees into workable beams, and hold them together with... what? wooden nails? That's a degree of craftsmanship that is unlikely to come about easily.

I've always imagined post-apocalyptic worlds as fighting a slow yet inevitable decent into the stone age. Any salvaged technology will eventually become useless relics - neither understood nor usable. It is part of the tragedy of the theme.

So, by a couple of centuries after the event, people are most likely living in mud and earth huts. Wattle and daub style walls, simple thatch. Those more robust buildings will still be being squatted in, and some basic dry stone walls used.

There is, in fact, a good analogy in history - Britain after the end of the Roman occupation. The skills and infrastructure required to maintain the stone cities was lost after the fall of Roman Britain. Over the next few hundred years, the towns fell into increasing disrepair, until the buildings inside the old town walls were replaced with more primitive roundhouses. Even using the stone to build new houses wasn't done for hundreds of years, because the knowledge of how to do so was lost. The simple structures they did make were mostly possible as the skills to do so still existed in the countryside, and the basic agricultural lifestyle remained unchanged.

The difference today is that in a major post apocalyptic event, modern agriculture would totally collapse, and there isn't a readily available source of people with stone-age farming skills to teach it - so everything has to be learned from scratch. And, that would take time as many would take to scavenging for such a long time, we would essentially revert to hunter-gatherers. That would mean a period of skin and pelt tents inside the ruins of crumbled buildings.

So, a timeline might be...

1) Immediate aftermath - repaired modern buildings
2) 10-100 years - more dilapidated buildings, greater number of poor quality repairs. Newer buildings resemble shanty towns. Very few permanently occupied buildings, mostly in locations where agriculture is surviving using increasingly old and dilapidated tools.
3) 200 years - Collapse of almost all agriculture - tools required for mass agriculture no longer available - useable, workable metals exceptionally rare. Tools to repair buildings gone. Few remain useable. Society reverts to small bands of hunter-gathers.   
4) Up to 1000 years - basic agricultural practices begin to be re-established - mud huts. Increased stability allows groups to begin to re-learn how to mine ore and smelt simple metal tools
5) Up to 1500 years - Return to middle ages style society.


the numbers I just made up, but I don't think they are hugely unreasonable. So much of our knowledge is electronic, that once it is lost we are, in essence, doomed.

[Manchu]

I think any collapse would be fairly uneven - again, depending on the cause. It's hard to imagine anyone surviving a truly global event, at least to the extent that the human species could carry on. Barring that, we come to the assumption that the most complex infrastructures are the most vulnerable. Developments since the survivalist boom in the '80s challenge this view. Complex infrastructures actually tend to be fairly resilient even in the face of system shocks. Keep in mind that infrastructural hubs do not indirectly collapse in war scenarios. Rather, they are directly attacked. The sudden death of all major cities would be a terrible blow but I doubt a blow strong enough to knock humanity back into the Stone Age. Yes, our ability to reconstruct accurate Tudor-era architecture would be hobbled, perhaps permanently. But that's irrelevant. Half-timber and mudbrick structures, generally considered, do not require tools and skills that are likely to be irrevocably lost in any apocalyptic scenario our species could expect to survive.

The time frame I had in mind is well after the immediate crisis (whatever it is) has ended but before recovery of near-contemporary (say late 19th-/early 20th-century) infrastructural capacities. Given the parameters outlined above, I would expect this period to last no more than two centuries. I really doubt people would be, for example, building Bartertown after the first few decades of this period.

Getting back to the more immediate issue as far as miniatures gaming goes, maybe it would be helpful to start with a very narrow consideration. Shouldn't we see more mudbrick buildings in post-apoc gaming? Can its lack only be explained in terms of genre, as opposed to practicality? Following up on mysteriousbill's points - maybe add some "tech" parts? But are you just left with Mos Eisley?

[pahvivalmiste]

Half-timbered, Dark Age stone, mudbrick, and Old West buildings are all widely available in several scales. But I have almost never seen such pieces used in post-apoc gaming. Are these styles simply too anchored in certain genres to convey the post apocalyptic feel? Maybe a return to these more rustic albeit less impromptu architectural solutions implies a setting too "far" past the apocalypse event?

Planet of the Apes (the original movie) creates a very effective post-apoc feel with only one terrain piece (buried Statue of Liberty) But I think you're right in that the styles are anchored to certain genres; OTOH I think all the styles you mentioned could work if you add them something that hints there's a stereotypic post-apoc thing involved. You're free to create your own (scenery) setting, after all.

[horridperson]

I think that construction are dependent on the socio-political circumstances.  In an ordered society (rule of law) structures that emulate traditional housing should be expected.  In lawless places structures need to be fortified or defensible.  I don't see agrarian communities or materials being processed by our PA builders being feasible or attractive choices in the near end times.  Expediency would require occupation of existing structures preferably made of stronger, pre-apocaplyptic materials.  I know nothing of building bricks from mud and would have to visit a library to learn such mysteries of the past without the internet to make me seem more knowledgeable than I am.  I'd be much better off raiding lumber and brickyards, concrete plants and adapting modern construction materials to manual implementation.3  It's much more practical to adapt knowledge you have than have to reinvent the wheel and practicality would dictate survival.

As humans we have a history of acquiring and scavenging from our predecessors.  Cities are often built from the bones of older habitations.  We came out of the dark ages on the clues left by the Romans.

[CptJake]

I know if I had to start from scratch, a log cabin type structure would be easier for me to build than mud bricks.

[sukhe_bator]

The clues would be whatever historic/cultural background your setting is placed in. Mud brick will not do well in a wet climate for example. Post Apoc stories also predict that nukes etc. will frak with the climate with storms, dark clouds, crap dropping out the sky, less sunlight etc. etc. Also fires from ruptured/rusted gas mains etc. will likely cause firestorms in cities that will destroy/gut most buildings. Available resources and climatic conditions will inform a survivor as much as his/her skillset.
The skills to manufacture steel, aluminium and ceramics will likely be lost, so shuttering etc. will be at a premium. Concrete, cement and metal rock cages would be good materials, but equally cargo containers etc. would be good...
This interesting use of the 40 foot container has recently opened in the UK...
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=boxpark&espv=2&biw=2240&bih=1194&site=webhp&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjis7f3r6bSAhVkF8AKHRsgC2UQsAQIWw
A less 'polished' hive of such containers could make a structurally strong colony for survivors...
 

[Wachaza]

I know if I had to start from scratch, a log cabin type structure would be easier for me to build than mud bricks.

Depends where you are. In temperate Europe or the US probably. In the Middle East mud bricks are easy.

What's available would depend on what caused your Apocalypse and when it happened.

Zombies-there are plenty of buildings, mostly intact. Clear them out, repair any damage and you're golden. Military bases, warehouses, airports. Anything with security fences. Reusing existing buildings or getting your material from a builder's merchant would make the most sense.

Nuclear or big upheaval then you'd be better looking back a few hundred years and the way structures were built locally then. In the UK big trees are unusual now so it's take a long time to get the timber for large structures. Stone would need well organised societies to quarry and a lot of the easily accessible quality stone has been mined out. Local brick clays could be terrible quality or used up.

If you've chainsaws , explosives and lorries it's quite easy to bring in over fair distances. If you're limited to animal and muscle power then access to building material would be a big problem. Brick, wood, stone a lot of the raw materials are much rarer now and harder to access than a few hundred years back. If you're near a deserted city then salvage would be an option if it's not a pile of irradiated glass.

[Cory]

As has been pointed out, locations is as important as what caused the devastation.

That said I have built log and stone structures as well as tamped earth and conventional stick built wood. Materials are far closer than people often realize and the basics are enough that people copying what they have seen will do remarkably well after a few tries. There will be shacks, but there can be nicer and grander structures. Many will incorporate bits of old to some degree. Over time windows will be broken but shards can still make windows - think of the shapes of stained glass.

As to metal, cities and refuse heaps will be the likely source not mines.

What ultimately matters the most is how much time must be spent simply surviving and how much effort can be put into a location. If food or hostiles demand you move every few weeks expect to see tents and portable housing. If every few months or even year or two then shacks to keep the place warm and dry. Beyond that then something more perhaps as materials, time, and conditions allow.

And no matter where one would travel, for the first millennia or so after I would expect concrete remains of the before time would form the core of most structures.

[dinohunterpoa]

A very interesting thread!

Check out this guy making a tropical house literally from scratch (he makes a stone axe first):



 

[commissarmoody]

Look into New Mexico "earth ships".

[Dr Mathias]

if you watch the film salute of the jugger it is the car tyre that is the king of construction material in the post apoc. It has very good and well thought out set construction that is a must for anyone pondering this stuff.

Great inspiration source. I'll have to take a closer look at the overworld buildings. When I last watched it I was more into Necromunda, so the city is what got my attention. I suspect most of you into the genre already know that the American version of this fantastic movie is called 'Blood of Heroes', but I'll mention it just in case