BM08 – American Dream Home Version 2.0 Alpha
Taking The American Dream To The Planet, Not From It
In 2008, we gathered in the desert to celebrate a dream that was already crumbling around us. And the Man carried the flags of every nation.
By demonstrating a sustainable path to providing the American Dream of a home to the world’s desperate without destroying the environment like ours homes do, Playatech made front page news for its third time in four years. And we spawned a real company, but enough of that here.
American Dream Home 2.0 Alpha was a 170 sq ft relief shelter prototype installed at 3 o’clock near the Man, fully-furnished in Playatech, and lit by solar powered LEDs. By day, it gave burners a surprisingly cooled place to escape the sun, and made it hard to tell when dust storms raged outside. By night, it was radically lit in sequenced Red, White, and Blue LED nets, and usually had a party going on inside.
A sign on the door expressed that half of humanity lacks a shelter this good, and asked for help in manifesting a better one for them. Signage inside showed how anyone could build it all. A guestbook included this descriptive intro that might rock your passions.
One day, we shouted “welcome home; it’s lunch time!” to all who visited, and served them the Great American Lunch: Oscar Mayer bologna, Wonder Bread, Kraft American Cheese, similarly branded condiments, and 5 gallons of margaritas (Our San Jose HQ used to be Mexico, yes?).
By the end of the event, the American Dream Home Version 2.0 Alpha guestbook included hundreds of amazing messages confirming that the radical vision we expressed is needed worldwide. A couple of messages accused us of placing a giant ad on the playa. Of course we did! That’s what Playatech always does – art with impact.
It was an ad for a dream, and Burning Man is where we learned that if we can dream it, we can do it. Thank you all for participating in the next evolution of the American Dream!
American Dream Home Version 2.0 Alpha has survived the playa, SF DEcom, storage, and months of continued use by two young men. See how it all went: