What do you do with a pool in the dessert? (Are you listening Las Vegas?) Leisure space is a premium, and I had no yard. I had a big ugly hole. What I needed was a design that optimally balanced living space and locally-appropriate purpose. I decided to build a survival bunker.
One of my favorite local swimming pool remodels can be credited to my friend David. His house had a concrete bottom pool that he promptly filled in with dirt to make a nice garden. He and his wife grow much of their own food now.
I love that idea. They took an utter waste of a scarce local resource, and turned it into vital sustenance. Had my pool not entirely dominated the landscape of our back yard, I may have ended up with a garden myself. But I had two key differences to consider: 1. our yard was terraced, 2. the pool had a sand bottom, making it
easier to remove. In the end, my yard became a remodel, a reconfiguration, and re-contextualization of its original form.
The "pool" would go, but the water would remain. I would "fill" the space with a void, and use that space to store an emergency cache of water and life-sustaining supplies. The yard would remain terraced, but clever design would serve to mask the existence the much deeper hidden cavity in its center.
From it's inception, the RECESS remodel has been a beast of burden. A desire for discretion, and limited access to the rear of our property meant that the entire demolition would be done by hand. 
Bugging Out is a popular concept in disaster preparedness and survival literature. A carefully equipped RECESS makes this concept irrelevant. The notion of fleeing to a Utopian existence and the bountiful resources of "the hills" is far from practical. RECESS allows your family to hunker down and wait out the worst case scenario, while the community around you flails and falters. Strategic raids into your surrounding suburban environment will yield far greater bounty than the often hostile and barren landscape surrounding your now comfortable community. 
There are a few key things to consider before launching headlong into the construction of your RECESS. Foremost is space. A proper RECESS will safely and comfortably accommodate your family through the long emergency. Living in a bunker, even for just a few days, can be a challenging and unpleasant experience. A little consideration of your spacial needs and concerns can go a long way to ensuring a tolerable, if not enjoyable experience. The internet is awash with resources. 
The idea for the bunker came to me after months of staring at the pit that dominated my yard.
Building a Bunker
