Strange contest, but the renderings are very nice.

I gotta say.... the entries are rather disappointing, partly because there was an UNLIMITED budget and partly because the lack of annotations on some of these is ridiculous... I have no idea what makes entry 4 so effectively zombie-proof (and able to sustain human life?) and what's the deal with the ship in entry 3?

The renderings are pretty nice though, and I do hope it does become an annual contest.

I hope these aren't our only options in the zombie apocalypse. What are the Mountain Getaway and Sears Roebuck supposed to offer, exactly? They're nice illustrations, but if these are my options, I'll go ahead and take my chances with my boyfriend's plan to steal heavy equipment and then take over an elementary school.

P.S., where did "zombies sleep during the day" come from? I've never heard that.

That's actually how we picked our current house. It's basically zombie-proof. Our front door is very hard to find (not exactly welcoming, but it keeps the zombies and Jehovah's Witnesses away), the house is impossible to climb on, the walls are made of rock (to deflect any zombies engulfed in fire) and it's on a hill (zombies aren't so good with hills). It also has a window over the front door that is large enough to throw hot tar or confetti out of (zombies love a good party!). We have surprised our friends by throwing things out of the window more than once... And if they *do* get in the house, there are areas that will bottleneck them while we pick them off. There is also a loft bedroom with a window so we can pick them off at the street level and the room has a very narrow anchored spiral staircase to give them some trouble. No wonder we call it The Fortress! :)

I'm definitely thinking along those lines. But the only zombie-proof place at my house is probably my bedroom and my office. Not bad, though!

My work though, definitely zombie-proof! :D

Huh, I actually had a zombie apocalypse dream last night. My dream-self's solution was to head to the ocean so that I could hide out on an island. So obviously the answer is a beach house! (wait, zombies can't swim, right?)

@lifeinthefortress, I like you!

Where we live now, I guess we'd be going for the rooftop barricade, like the father-daughter survivors in 28 Days Later. Unfortunately, there's a building that overlooks ours by one story, so it's a vulnerability that I haven't solved yet (if that building gets taken over, then anyone can jump over to ours).

Lifeinthefortress rocks. Ha!

I'm confident I will be safe. I beat Plants vs. Zombies on my iPad.

Haha, we talk about this all the time. My house has a giant window in the front and sliding glass doors in the back, so we've made my ex's house the designated "zombie apocalypse house." He rents, but his rentals are usually zombie proof. He also has guns and ammo (I hate them but am learning to shoot for zombie related reasons).

I always have dreams about zombies. I'm usually alone with my 5 year old daughter, and we all know it's really hard to protect little kids. We haven't gotten caught by them yet, but I bet a house like this would make me sleep better.

Oh, and zombies don't sleep during the day...that's vampires (the real ones, not the sparkly ones).

My Husband keeps his "zombie" ready weapons by the door in case the zombie appoc were to happen, which is alarming and also calming (you seriously never know).

I hope you people are kidding...

i want that brownstone on washington square that will smith was holed up in. but i'd add a tunnel to the next house through the basement as an escape hatch.

Reading The Zombie Survival Guide is highly recommended! It's got everything you need to know to protect yourself.

http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/zombiesurvivalguide/index2.html

@sauceykat, having an imagination is a fun thing, ya know. ;)

I am reading the zombie survival guide.
Ideal house would be on stilts with a set of retractable (attic style) stairs.
also.. when fighting zombies, you will want a crossbow and a machete. guns are too loud and will attract more zombies.

Our 3 story home with single stair way, and fall back loft is the perfect zombie safe house.

Hello, I did entry 3 and 4. But before I explain them I just wanted everybody to understand the spirit in which the contest was held. It was just a joke in the firm and 3 of us just decided to do an entry for fun. The fella that did the #2 entry is a zombie fanatic who has been thinking about this stuff for a while, which should be evident by his design. Myself, I really don’t think much at all about zombies but I thought it would be a good excuse to break out the water colors and have some fun. That's why I don't have any text, because it was just three of us presenting our ideas to each other. Then someone had the idea of making a poll - that's #1's entry - he made the poll. Now the thing has taken off and our office website went from an average of 28 hits a day to 16,000. Go figure. In fact this poll has gone all over the world and on a bunch of websites an blogs we NEVER thought would happen. Trust me, if I would have known this I would have put text on mine to explain. But since I didn't I'll give a brief explanation.

#3 the Mountain Getaway: This one was based on an individual that escapes from the zombie horde by balloon attached to his house seeing no way out from the zombie engulfed city. Of course, being attached to the house doesn't allow for much steering, so the man drifts along until he decides to set himself down in a mountain crevice. Of course the landing causes the house to split up and he has to makes due with hand built ladders and walkways. But he dose have his living quarters with in the house and they are still functional. Time passes and the man realizes that the zombies have evolved and are beginning to scale the mountains to reach him. So while they are scuttling around the base of the mountain he begins tunneling and fortifying the mountain with safe havens and traps. The mountain walls have spikes made form the trees that were once on top and in the mountain, save one (for prosperities sake), and a pit with spikes with a shaky bridge discourage uncoordinated zombies from making it into the living quarters that can only be entered through a small hidden passage. Of course should the zombies ever break the forts defenses the two means of escape are by the balloon, thereby taking the useful part of the house with him, or by boat, which scoots along out the mountain an down twisty rivers. Ok, there are some logistic problems, but it was more fun to draw it like this ;)

#4 Sears and Roebuck 003b: OK, some of you younger people might not know this but back many - many years ago you could order whole houses from the Sears and Roebuck Catalog. Yes, whole house kits would be shipped to you're site. In the spirit of that I thought that what if our survivalist couldn't make it out of town. Well if he had the forethought to purchase one of this kits (with a 5 year warranty), when the apocalypse ensues and the derelict buildings with just their steel skeletons dot the landscape remain, you can put up your zombie fort, complete with all the amenities of home and completely impenetrable. Roof garden and solar cells on roof not shown. I actually wouldn't have put this in the poll had I know how many people where going to vote because this one was done just for fun. But oh well.

Thanks to all that voted for me! Hope yall enjoyed.

lol

I am SO glad I'm not the only nut who does this!

Only in my case...the ex and I have decided to hide out with our son at my apartment. Upstairs, hard to get to windows, easy to secure front door, and I actually have to bathrooms. ;)

I love number 3! It's wonderful. You should create a poster.

Wait, I thought vampires are the undead. I really gotta catch up. I have noticed that unlike slinky, sexy vamps, zombies tend to seem ugly, slow and arthritic. Is this correct? Also, we're supposed to shoot them instead of driving a stake through their heart? Right? Heading off to the survival guide...

Some nights I lay awake worrying about zombie epidemic. So funny (& cute) there is such a contest. I live in a prewar brownstone in NYC. I have no chance surviving a zombie apocalypse there. I think about hiding out in my office building on 11th avenue. Probably not a good idea. The neighborhood is pretty much deserted (except for a few car dealerships). It's totally fitting as the creepy zombieland background...

I have dreams about zombies often. Maybe zombies aren't realistic, but hordes of people that went mad is pretty realistic. Pretty much the same thing in my mind.