On Sex Bunkers

Amazingly cool futuristic houses are always so disappointing, mostly because the builders don't even exist yet, and when they do, don't show as much flesh as the old ones. But a few always slip through the continuum transfunctioner, and produce a sex-bunker so cool that you almost forgive them for being well-dressed.

Caught on Gothamist, there's a new type of prefabricated studio, known as Loft-Cube, that can be dumped on top of an apartment building, and which provides one with slinky, albeit limited, Jetsons-stlye accommodations. You just have it helicoptered onto the top of an apartment building's roof.

At the moment, of course, the downtrodden bloglets are pitching it as a blow by the poor renter against the vile landlord class. But you'll probably need a landlord's permission to put one in, and many landlords are likely to cut out the middle-men and install them directly. They sell for $100,000 apiece - it would have been half that, but for the cunning use of the word "Loft" in the name. Ho. Ho. Ho.

I've seen a rooftop in King's Cross that featured just such an ungainly extra unit, albeit of a more rudimentary appearance. It was wicked, right up until the landlord sent hired thugs round to evict my acquaintance in favour of a better tenant. Expect also, by the way, all sorts of weird planning decisions that negate the usefulness of these structures to all but the offspring of hedge fund managers.

Still, we note that the comments to the Gothamist post at least sent me towards this page of amazing future-cities, and that the whole exercise reminds me most strongly of the Alain Bublex series Plug-In City, from which, with all respect, the above image is stolen. The Archigram chaps would be very gratified.