Ever since the Law of Conservation of Energy in an isolated system followed the Second Law of Thermodynamics (associated with the concept of entropy), R.B. Fuller alleged that it can be applied in order to achieve the survival of the urban environment, through the transformation of its components. On the research topic “The distraction of destruction”, a retrospective on possible versions of the architectural practice mentioned above is attempted, as they are met in the concept of refuge under the circumstances of extreme decay of natural or artificial space. The time period from which these examples are drawn, is extended between World War I and today, and they are presented together with the realistic or fictional scenarios of destruction.

The historically accurate – or not - events, are guiding the survival experiences that are selected to consist a narration of collective memories-products of multiple and heterogeneous entries. Records of precarious states of survival are spotted in fields such as architecture, cinema, literature and arts, with emphasis on samples formed by science fiction and the ceaseless search for heteropias to live in, for a secure perpetuation of the human species. Contemporary progress in technology or science is supplementarily mentioned, as with each new achievement it sets the boundaries to the extent of decay imposed on a landscape and simultaneously offers the possibility to create new habitable ground.    

The course from the transformation to the complete dematerialization of the ground, in man’s effort to recapture it and redispose the infrastructural networks that support his living conditions, is mostly characterized by the concept of ephemerality. As the threats from which he needs to be protected alter, and the potential land of settlement is identified more and more with the aggregation of data which compiles it, human thought is constantly changing in a place of collective consciousness that slowly acquires a well-formed composition.

The study ends with the search of new relations that arise between the body of man-nomad in the newly consisted world of data and the intellect it “carries”, as the first is detaching from the “analog” space and wanders in today’s temporary ruins. Decay itself has obtained a new nature and application point, resulting in the formation of places characterized as ruined, which only bear the impression of abandonment. Acknowledging these too, as isolated systems at which the law of Physics Fuller talked about, stands valid, “refuge” continues to exist as its component, but in a deconstructed form, until it transits to the next level of its “metalaxis”.