Two bodies field the impacts of the built environment’s destruction post-disaster: those who face damage to the structures they occupy, and the policies that govern their status after the event. United in an inverse relationship, insurance companies rely on risky behavior to shape profits while policyholders embrace the moral hazard of establishing themselves in places destined for eventual collapse. Absurdity is inherent to this connection; both the risk-sharing pools of insurance and the near guarantee of eventual natural destruction are paradoxical blankets of comfort. Building upon precedents of kit homes in cities at the epicenter of the inevitable Cascadia earthquake, this project interprets ruin as opportunity to create disaster resilience with a catalog of homes that – rather than evade loss – embrace the absurd irrationality of hazardous environments and homeowner’s policies by developing a design language that projects post-disaster payouts from individual willingness absorb risk.
In the Event of Total Loss
