The Origin

Most design objects begin with a creative impulse.
Mine began with a threat.

I didn’t set out to make art. I set out to understand how we might survive something radically new—something like mirror bacteria or AI-designed pandemics. But as the research turned into engineering, and engineering turned into form, something unexpected emerged: a capsule that was not just functional, but sculptural. Something that could speak to the future while holding space for the present.

I didn’t plan to build shelters.
I spent most of my career in wind energy—modeling airflow, designing systems, solving problems that once felt impossible but now mostly work.

Eventually, I began to ask: what’s next?
What problem still matters, but hasn’t been solved?

I spoke to people at the edges of the map—biosecurity researchers, AI safety leaders, risk analysts. What they told me changed everything.

The world’s threats were getting stranger. Faster. Harder to see before it’s too late.

Some were trying to predict them. Some were trying to prevent them. But almost no one was building physical protection that could be deployed quickly, without permits, at a standard higher than even semiconductor manufacturing cleanrooms.

So I started designing.

Early interest came from people at the highest levels of U.S. national security, from strategic advisors to AI safety philanthropists, and from elite biosecurity professionals. The project received generous financial support from the Survival and Flourishing Fund and the Long-Term Future Fund, with reviewers noting: “There’s no other project like this.” That backing made it real.

At first, it was pure research.
But the more I worked, the more it manifested.

This isn’t a bunker.
It’s a sealed, silent capsule—with the cleanest air ever produced on Earth.
It inflates in minutes. It fits on a few pallets.
It can sit in a garden, studio, or garage and wait—without explanation—until it’s needed.

AI safety researchers were among the first to reserve one.
Others were driven by a quiet skepticism—that our wisdom may not keep pace with our power.
Not for comfort. Not even for survival.
But for a reluctance to be helpless in the face of accelerating technological progress.

For me, this is not a business.
It’s a response.

I built Fønix to show that something like this can exist.
That one person, with enough care and the right support, can bring together beauty, readiness, and restraint.

Some will use it as a guest pod.
Others will treat it as sculpture.
Others still may never unbox it.

But all share one instinct:
That being a little early is better than a little too late.