There is a famous Chinese proverb called ‘counter changes with changelessness’, which mean to deal with shifting events by remaining constant and consistent, sticking to a fundamental principle. The cure and solution lies on the contradictory of things. There are no objects are entirely different than other. Hence, we are different and the same.
Zone 5 What is Modern? Arguments
Labels, Speed, and 9 to 5, Portable Architecture
Introduction Abandoned Club
Introduction
Concept, Site plan, Cave and Nest The Settings/Rule The Modules Configured box (CUBO), Bridge, Transition Tower Culture Into Modular Space The Guide Map
The System Structure and Machine Transporting Human
Site Section, Site Plan, Montage
01. Initial Overview
Introduction
am interested in building something big. Big enough for a change, an utopia to explore the new possibility of living. Being in the zone, explored the idea of vertical civilisation through speed, image, and time. Also, to find a common ground between virtual and reality. Redefining existing technology on what it can do in architecture.
The portfolio discussed my vision and ambition towards architecture and the technology have explored. Questioning the norms of living that still remain in today’s culture whilst yesterday’s technology and today’s are completely different.
wish to create architecture intelligence.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt, to change. Steven Hawking
An architecture that adapts to current technology, change of environment and speed yet preserving the origin of humanity and culture. A constant that deals with changes.
01. Initial Overview Zone Introduction
About Zone 5
Zone 5, a zone to investigate Generation Y architecturally.
In this design studio, we are to find ourselves, as networked individuals and to search for a definition in architectural agendas of Generation Y.
The Big Questions.
i. Do we need a new set of rules to define space within virtual reality (VR)?
ii. What are the potentials of VRspace?
iii. Does programme matter in virtual space?
iv. How could VR advances and broaden in usage in daily life?
v. How spaces are interpreted?
vi. How spaces are redefined in absolute virtual context?
vii. How special arrangements change in relation to the way people communicate and exchanging information?
viii. What is architectural fiction and what is an architectural idea?
Event Space
The nightclub might be considered as the opposite of the decorated shed. Nightclub is event space that continuously changes, using effects such as light, smoke, water as materials. The party go-ers are collaborating with a number of key elements; the sound system, the DJ, and people. Mark’s Fisher’s deployable, mobile structures push back against conformity and gravity. Their intention is fleeting, yet permanent and they form a bridge between architecture as space and image. Free from the conventions of permanence these structures live on as image and memory. Event might be seen as the gateway to VR.
Fig 1.4 The Mood & Vibe
Fig 1.2 The Changing Scenes - Visual Effects
Fig 1.1 People & Movements
Fig 1.3 Musics The Groove & The Beat
What is Modern?
We are to define what is modern in our perception.
Modernism could happen in anytime, anywhere even in different era. It is completely subjective to people who have different background and culture. Does modern means technology alone?
Do we consider a person to be modern by their culture behavior, costume, or their act? The definition of modern events, varies from people who came from different background, exposure level, age group and social behavior. ‘Modern’ can be grouped as an adjective, similar to ‘Beautiful’, its subjective. This is modern to you, might not to me, not everyone.
A casual supermarket might mean something common to us, but it could be modern to someone who lives in rural area who cant easily get supplies and resources. For people who use non touchscreen handphone first contact with iphone, wow sleek and modern, for people who never use handphone before, iphone is beyond modern, is unreachable. Thus, it really depends on what we have, and what we ought to achieve.
Expression through Movement & Art
Modern can be expressed in any type of form, including dance, through mentality, skill and knowledge and translated into body movements that can influence people in thinking, what exactly modern is.
Transformation
As technology advanced in fast pace, it influenced people and their behavior. We create the technology to satisfy the needs of the modern world and yet the outcome has deeply shape our culture and environment, which lead to the chaos theory. A slight change in product can result something big in the society.
People demand something that can transfer information verbally in two different places for convenience and efficiency, hence a telephone. Then, people hope for something portable to enhance the function of a telephone, hence a mobile phone is created. Then, the big, heavy, mobile phone is not handful enough, hence mobile phones are getting smaller, lighter, multi-functional as it can make calls, play mini games, send text messages and customising. Futher on, from BW screen to color screen to touch screen, camera function, social media hits the society hard and make it part of our life, due to connections between people made easy. Mobile phone became a need, instead of an option. People start get used to these transformation of technology and expect more because people believe the world should be continuously advancing, and technology is the proof.
Luminosity
Something that functioned with light. A shoe with light, shirt that glows, keyboard with light, phone with torchlight, as light is always one of invention and innovation of products to achieve ‘something that glows looks cool’ effect. Well, ‘cool’ is one of the characteristics or wording expression of modernity.
Fig 1.5 Expression
Fig 1.6 Transformation
Fig 1.7 Luminosity
2000s 2010s 2010s
02. The Doubts
The state and value of modernism is evolving The meter that define modern is ever-changing due to speed how much world exposed to technology and how you perceive it. The speed is how fast and how much the world is forced to progress due to technology.
Introduction
about the elephant
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about the elephant
*Which is text is modern and which is old fashioned to you? chose the one that has the biggest transformation from old english text in terms of shape and form.
The irony part of technology is, human created technology to connect/conquer/explore the world and its resources to get better living and better efficiency, yet it is dividing us in terms of labels morale, conscience and emotion. it is creating stereotypes of a particular person/thing should look like, or to be functioned as. Due to the power of Google and other search engines, informations are gathered and put into categories and we get to accessed by ease.
Now, we are more connected to technology, instead of being connected to the world. So technically, ‘technology’ has replaced/conquered ‘the world’. The value of technology being created in the first place has changed.
Whenever there is speed, there is risk. Speed can be dangerous when it is attached to a subject. For example technology and politics. Speed cannot act alone. According to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, speed is a relative motion which involve at least 2 objects moving with respect to each other. Speed only can be determined if one object moves in relation to another object or to a reference point.
It is risky when a piece of technology is invented but couldn’t take control the after effects. First the internet, then the social media. Technology that has invented for good intention but comes along with new social issues. Virilio claimed that there is negative impact of every technology that is invented. Speed is the cause when old technology is being replaced. Who conquer speed, who conquer the world. Speed of getting information (intangible) and getting work done (intangible).
Paul Virilio
When you invent the ship, you also invent shipwreck; When you invent the plane, you also invent plane crash; When you invent electricity, you invent electrocution.
Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.
Technology is about speed and efficiency. Virilio’s dromology explained that the quickest to harvest information and harness the tech is the winner. Dromology is derived from the Greek ‘dromos’: avenue or race course. The theory of dromology interprets the world and reality as a resultant of velocity. Virilio argues that speed became the sole agent and measure of progress. He contends, that “there was no ‘industrial revolution’, only ‘dromocratic revolution’; there is no democracy, only dromocracy; there is no strategy, only dromology (Virilio, 2011).
For example touchscreen technology. It killed buttons technology. Starting from phone, to other devices, to automobile. Now VR is hitting the market, hologram might replace touchscreen in the future, and might named touchair. Technology make things go lighter, faster, stronger. Nothing is lighter and stronger than virtual objects with zero gravity.
That is why VR is the future. Products are slowly engaged with VR technologies. The technologies are getting invincible in reality. Hence, name the future technology as ‘ghost technology’.
Labels
According to Google definition, ‘label’ is a small piece of paper, fabric, plastic or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it. But do we need it?
As mentioned in Speed, every piece of technology comes with pros and cons. Search engine allow people to quick search information they want however, it unawarely label people, places, products and things into categories which might turn out to be the wrong idea. Labels could limit our creativity and cause wrong perception and rises prejudice.
Everything has their purpose and function. Do we need labels to tell us how to function or behave? To make things easy, yes, sometimes. A table, labelled as furniture, providing a flat surface to allow people to get work done or to place objects. But google won’t tell you it can behave like a chair, it would be too complicated. They have similar legs count, a flat top, but comes with different area and height. Technically, a tall chair is a table, and a short table is a chair.
where <> is connected, >< is disconnected
Undeniably, now is the era where the generation can’t live without technology anymore. But how do we respond to the world without suffering too much from the consequence of time, speed, and technology? Can we connect the world both physically and virtually to the world by utilising the current technology?
When new technology is invented, it will possibly replace the old technology and this might result a change that will affect other technology to change. This is the chain effect. The consequences of new technology is sometimes faster than the speed of light, before human can even predict, adapt, and vision it.
We can’t change the type. However we should let the behavior, culture and character of something or someone to determine what they are and who we are because that is the elements that gives us identity. There is always another side of what what you think it’s fixed. The mother tongue of an Indian could be Mandarin. It is a fact in Malaysia. Therefore, labelling things, people, and space are restricting their potential to be something more. 9 5
The typical work day is around 8 hours due to Industrial revolution. In the late 18th century, when companies started to maximize the output of their factories, getting to running them 24/7 was key. Now of course, to make things more efficient, people had to work more. In fact, 10-16 hour days were the norm. These incredibly long work days weren’t sustainable and soon a brave man called Robert Owen started a campaign to have people work no more than 8 hours per day. His slogan was “Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.” Ford Motor Company implemented it and their profit margins doubled within two years. This encouraged oter companies to adopt the short, eight hour work day as a standard for their employees. It is purely a century old norm for running factories most efficiently.
However, in today’s creativite economy and advanced technology, the job range has broaden and many people work at home. is 9 5 working culture still work the best for business hours? Due to the unflexible working hours, employees have abandoned their skills and talent and stucked in an office. Today’s generation no longer follows exactly the old norm of sleeping at 10am, waking up at 6am, and play after 5pm. So why should we follow what is setted in 18th century to work from 9 5?
Some jobs are not permitted to work on flexible hours such as working in factory and bank that are time sensitive and need to follow the required system. But what about others?
Mobility and movement within architecture have been discussed since the radical movement from 1960s. Including Archigram, Cedric Price, Buckminster Fuller and Le Corbusier who associate living and machine together.
The need for mobile architecture could change because we use technologies to negate the need for actual travel. To be portable, in other words, buildings need to be designed and improved with its adaptability because adaptability and flexibility is the real agenda for the future. Flexible housing, which can change form and adapt to people’s lifestyle will not only become more popular but also necessary.
03. Vision
“I want to create a constant architecture, acting along with the consequence of time.”
What do mean by ‘constant’ architecture?
Everything changes. Everything changes in their pace accordingly to time and relatively between objects. “Change is the only constant in life”, said a Greek philosopher, Heraclitus. In other words, the only thing that never changes is that everything changes.
Constant = Change
(To be constant, it need to allow changes and change is constant.)
Change (transformation) = Movement/Time
Fig 3.0 is a collage on one of the abandoned clubs in Ibiza to express an idea of moving architecture that encourage vertical living that promote changes in place and time. It is a megastructure erected to connect abandoned places with steel structures that provide a framework for modules to develop within. The track above allow modules to travel around between checkpoints.
The Consequence of Time
Time make events and made history. It allows things (objects, value, and emotions) to change, move, transform, age and grow. Time is an intangible form of speed. Time is the capacity of speed. It contained moments and shaped how the world it is today. Time will not stop, because it does not have a duration for itself. It never starts nor ends. Does architecture has a duration or an expiry?
Time = Constant = Change
Things are going faster and faster. Because time is always the constant when things happen. Time does not change its value but change value of others. It is a unit for us to measure productivity. How long it takes to do something/ work done. We do things relating to time. Is time parallel? Relative?
The victim of consequences of time, pigeon. Homing pigeons deliver messages for the ancient Persians in 12th century. Now they play a huge role on playing interactive living creature in most of the Europe urban cities as tourist attractions. The role changed due to flux of time that drives technology.
Technology is constantly advancing to assist human in completing everyday task and improve living qualities and efficiency (to save time). Human created technology however the impact of technology are sometimes too overwhelming and become uncontrollable and unpredictable. It’s a cycle. We invent technology to solve problems however it comes with its cause. When information received too easily, they get abused and misused.
Introduction
August becomes a characteristic busy month for the Capitania Maritima (Harbour Department) who have registered record breaking numbers of boats, yatchs, ferries and cruise ships occupying the Ibiza port.
Most figures on the up are those of cars. Although all summer traffic congestion is usually blamed on the local ‘rent a car’ companies, most of the cars that arrive on the island are brought over by tourists or seasonal workers that bring over their own personal cars.
Ibiza’s traffic chaos is caused mainly because, on top of the 90,000 vehicles that are registered on the island, we have to add hundreds of other cars that arrive every day on the main ferries coming from Denia, Valencia, Barcelona and Mallorca ports. On average during the summer, island is inundated with 22,000 new cars a month, causing huge traffic jams on the main entrances and exits of the busiest towns (Wright, n.d.).
There’s an average of 2 million tourists coming from all around the world with the same reason. Ibiza provides the cutting edge of techno/trance music. Many people come to the island for drink, drugs, sun and sex, enjoy nightlife and landscape (BBC News, 2001). 7.1 million people visited in 2016 (Lowe, 2016). In 2015, Spain was the most common tourism destination in the EU for non residents (270 million nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments. This includes Ibiza. The fascinating element of Ibiza is the contrast of being in Ibiza during the day and night. The activities are crossing the edge of modern and tradition, old and new, nature and electro, relax and intense.
The way to get around Ibiza is to travel by cars. Due to the bumpy contour, not all area are successfully developed due to high cost of infrastructure. In result, population is centralised in specific area and causes traffic and human congestion during summer.
British stands 38.7% of the total tourist industry that visits the island in a year. The Germans follow with 26.3% followed by the Spanish 11.9%, the Italians 8% and the French 4.9% (Wright, n.d.). It is a free spirited island that provides condition and activities that encourage interactions between different cultures.
Local News in Ibiza
Fig 4.1Fiesta Club (Abandoned)
Fig 4.2 Es Vedra
Fig 4.3 Atlantis
Fig 4.5 Salt Flats
Fig 4.4 City Centre
It is a massive concrete ruin above the small town of Sant Josep. Due to the isolated location in the midst of a pine forest, an access road was needed to be constructed to connect to the local electricity grid. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Mediterranean island of Ibiza began to embrace package tourism. It was finished in 1972 and successful captures the attention of tourists (Thomas, 2011).
This immense development featured an amphitheatre which hosted performance art and even mock bull fights, a large music venue at the top and in between there were several bars and a restaurant with rows of concrete tables lining the slope of the hill like contours. It was a popular venue with tourists and locals of all ages too but looking at it now, it is quite difficult to imagine it full of happy revellers and as a place that provided employment to dozens of people.
The good times at Festival Club did not last long and losses began to pile up in the wake of the 1973 fuel crisis which caused dramatic rise in airfares, discouraging tourists from taking foreign holidays and making it increasingly uneconomical to bus the few remaining tourists up into the hills and back again each night. The venue closed in 1974 after only two seasons in operation and never re-opened despite being on the market for many years.
Now, after 37 years of disuse, the site and its infrastructure is wrecked by vandals and majority of structural damage is caused by nature. The remains are covered with graffiti varies from fine street art to pathetic scribbles. It became the graveyard to many joyridden vehicles and is taken over by pine trees. It is also a venue for paintball and photoshoot for pacha magazines (Thomas, 2011).
04. Ibiza
The Project
The project introduced a framework to encourage mobility and flexibility of moving space. It also draw human, technology and the world closer to each other. Using technology to operate and interact with people and nature at the same time.
Inches of the map of Ibiza could be explored, not only the attractions by stitching up inactive and abandoned pieces. It provide an alternative to look and live above the island and serves as an infrastructure. Starting from the highest peak of mountain, to abandoned club, to airport and to city. The transition of different type of space could be captured by using the framework provided.
The rock bedded Ibiza encourage the use of steel construction (all structural framework). It is estimated that 50000 tons of steel are needed to built the entire framework, which cause 200 trips of ship.
courage people to work for themself with the skills they have at the timeslot they want.
A space that you can carry.
Introducing CUBO, a neutral cubic space that could change its typology according to different occasion and need at different time. It is the ‘blood and cell’ that flows throughout and live within the ‘body’ of the project.
The Setting/Rule
1. The project will recruit 5 people without attachment or commitment in every country to live for 3 months.
2. Adopt virtual gaming system, introduce; online currency, mobile application to control and manipulate activities happen within the city and as social network. For e.g. to book slots, accepting/reject buddy request, accept/reject invitation to stay beside you, payment transaction, and profile.
3. You dont get to choose your neighbour, it’s random or you can select base on certain checkboxes. For e.g. location, favourite color, skills, interest, subjects, and other favourites. If you are a an architect but wish to learn about cooking, you can check on ‘cooking’ tickbox. Thus you neighbour will at least have 1 thing in common with you.
4. Get to know someone and to interact with random people that share the same interest, not who we labelled as. For e.g. race, nation, gender, blood type, occupation, social status and etc.
5. The city targets people who are interested in temporary stay such as travellers (< 3 months). However, its potential might lead to a permanent living environment.
6. It is open to public and operates 24/7.
Concept
Creating change to encounter changes over time
There are other abandoned places such as Glory’s Festival Club, Josep Lluis Sert’s abandoned hotel that have encounter the same incidence as Festival Club. They are the victims of Ibiza that suffer to the consequence of time, which inspired me to create a constant architecture that could remained in time.
People have to change to be remained in the timezone, so does architecture.
What propose is an elevated megastructure to provide a framework that uses grid system as a foundation to build and support moments of diversified network and community.
Creating modules (neutral spaces) that allow changes and are ready for expansions and customisation. Assembling from configured box to structural components that form a megastructure. The purpose is to create rooms for development, transformation that respond to own need, habit, culture and behavior and at the same time adapt to immediate situation.
The megastructure spread across Ibiza, connecting attraction points, airport, and shipping port to capture the activity of change in different speed.
Living in the world of speed, spaces need to be flexible to adapt change and allow transformation, and even have portability to enhance movements and changes. An architecture that could contain chaos in an oder, with multilayers of change, event and speed.
Hence, an unlabelled city, a place that grows without a label, a single definition, but definition that defined by every inhabitants, cultivating their own architecture for particular moment or over time. The ultimate goal of the megastructure is to achieve different images every single timeframe no matter up close or in distance.
Grid provides an order to changes, a system to contain chaos. Every perspective on 3D grid is different. It creates overlapping images, the penetration creates transparency and confuses what’s being real and unreal.
The Solids of Space
We can’t actually see a space, but we can indicate it or divide a space. It does not have a form until it is being virtually or physically defined and that would result a place. The city does not have a facade and it is penetrable due to the grid structure. In figure 5.5, it shows what our mind usually perceive interior space when surrounded by structure, which considered as fake solid.
The Voids of the Actual Space
Figure 5.6 is the actual solids which occupied by forms. The voids created breathing space and becomes dynamic and lighter psychologically.
Fig
Organism
Shows the possibility for expansion and growth living inside a framework that bring ease to movement and machine activities.
“ The future of architecture is primitive. ”
CAVE AND NEST
Inspired by the architect Sou Fujimoto, his thoughts about the relationship between cave and nest and applied on his architecture practice.
He explained ‘nest’ implies a space that has been specifically prepared for human habitation. A cave is the opposite of this: a naturally formed space, which to be used for dwelling requires a creative act on behalf of a human. The cave alters the behaviour of its occupant by offering no clear way in which to use the space. Although to some degree this ambiguity is inherent in all spaces, the cave is completely undefined. He calls these creative acts of appropriation the beginning of architecture. Within the cave the body needs adapt to the space to meet its needs. As the body adapts, the space takes on a new subjective and temporal definition, unique to each occupant. A harmonious relationship is established between the body and space. The ambiguity of the cave offers a surprisingly flexible architecture.
In this project, there are no absolute private spaces however the system is designed to encourage inhabitants to make ‘nest’ within the framework. The space is molded to adapt people’s needs. Public spaces are formed in the result of ‘nests’. The remains of space (void) is passively formed and influenced by other activities (the movement of physical spaces), which mimick the phenomenon of cave. The changing state and interaction of solids and void made no permanent ‘shape’ of space.
The diagrams explained the theory of ‘Cave and Nest’. The solids are the spaces tailored by human according to their habit and needs using modular cubes (nest). While voids are the breathing space/public spaces that are formed by changing perimeter affected by surrounding cubes (cave). The form of the void is constantly changing so does the solids.
The city is built on a modular system. The main structure is constructed by modular steel framework and act as the mother of smaller modular ‘parasites’. The mother will provide resources and supplies to parasites (building services). For e.g. electric, water, sewage, gas and others.
The structure organism from each development will grow if small framework (fig 5.8c) start to populate. The core structure will start to expand (get assemble) so as the medium framework then the small framework. Medium framework is to contain small framework to support activities.
Fig 5.8 Roof Plan
Fig 5.8a The Mother (Core Structure)
Fig 5.8b Parasite A (Medium Framework)
Fig 5.8c Parasite of Parasite A (Small Framework)
As the city is made from modular framework, it could be expand when it’s over populated and can be easily dismantled. It grows and shrinks depending on the demand.
50 meter square space on plan is estimated to be inhabited by 100 people. The total built area is 1% of of Ibiza total area, which is 5,000,000m2 (affected area, include non living space). Excluding non living space, the project can provide space for minimum 5 million people.
The Modules
Bridge Tower
Variation and Development of Cubical Space
Modules
Social Virus
There are social issues everywhere, visible or invincible. The speed of technology is so quick and enhanced the development of social issues that we can see. Either social media, internet or news. We receive them fast, get exposed fast, influenced fast, and react even faster. We are more aware of the happenings of surrounding now. Social issues came from different opinions and perspective of standpoint.
People come from different background. We can’t label people base on their beliefs and different viewpoint. We should let the behavior, culture and character of something or someone to determine what they are and who we are because that is the elements that gives us identity.
Culture into Modular Space
A research is done on 6 nationalities of the culture on how they would decorate and design the space. arrange and design their spaces according to their style, characteristic, method and potential furniture used. As one should not label another person from different background however, the culture they carried from the root will affect how they design the space, traditionally or contemporary. The nationality of the diagrams will not be exposed. Working with cubic space has its constraints, however, when there are constraints, there will be creativity.
Fig 5.15 Voices of Social Media
Culture into Modular Space
- Style : Exotic, interesting and complex decor styles. Due to the differences in the culture, history and art across the country, Indian interior design has many variants.
- Characteristic: Centers around versatile, informal spaces that allow relaxed interaction. Create different levels of seating using high chairs, sofas, diwans and footstools.
- Method :Vibrant color, patterns and motifs on fabrics, rugs and floor cushions lend warmth and comfort to decor and used liberally. Traditional Indian pieces such as the swing, or jhoola brings a playful and decadent vibe. Using Indian handicrafts, on of decorative artifacts in the space.
- Furniture : Traditional Indian cabinets with combination of functionality and aesthetics. Paintings, from gold-leafed paintings of Tanjore and the Rajasthani miniature paintings to the ever popular Madhubani paintings.
- Style : Modern and contemporary. Driven by clear artistic expression and the strong, vibrant spirit of Brazil, from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, sometimes untraditional design approach and aesthetic references to Brazil’s cultural diversity
- Characteristic : Unique materials, objects, textures and colours in experimental and eclectic designs. Combine organic shapes with tropical inspiration
- Method : Hybrids, experimental, use of recycled industrial materials and native materials for innovative designs to express cultural identity
- Furniture : Composed of layers of fabrics, ropes, belts, paper and materials unusual to furniture design. More as artistic objects than commerical products
- Style : Influence from thousands of years of Chinese culture and harmonious with nature
- Characteristic : Clean straight lines similar to Japanese interior design. The decor generally features bamboo, black or red lacquer finishes, or gold accents. bold fusion of black, glossy lacquer accented with gold and/or red. Afine balance by combining tradition and contemporary designs
- Method : Combination of simplicity, contemporary, modern, nature and power to make an environment of harmony and serenity, using colorful fabrics of upholstery as well as out-ofbox items like saris for home décor. Proper placement of a few valuable and beautiful objects in a room to achieve optimal effects. The design uses something exotic and emitted something spiritual in room layout, furniture, and color scheme.
- Furniture : Combination of Modern, Classic and Antiques. Oriental vases or tea lights on the coffee table or along shelves. Shoji screen dividers can also be utilized to divide rooms.
- Style : Eclectic style, Mix of Contemporary and Traditional styles, Decorative Arts.
- Characteristic : A play of Textiles and Textures with colour and pattern to create chic, comfy and romantic look. Often have a matchy feel. Fabric and prints are used repeatedly throughout a room, especially floral prints.
- Method : In between Structural and Sculptural, Tranquility with texture and clarity of details. A play with color and art object. There is often a more eclectic sense of how pieces are informally paired with one another. Emphasize on collections.
- Furniture : Combination of Modern, Classic and Antiques. Decoration includes contemporary art and sculptures in the space.
- Style : Regional, depends on geographical influence by designing spaces as unique as each separate corner of the American landscape. Also influenced by European and Nordic style.
- Characteristic : Romantic, elegant, cheerful, and boldly colorful and a mix of traditional ornamentation. Depends on regional themes, it can be Beach-like inspired or old Baroque or Victorian inspired. Tend to pick up a couple of colors and carry them throughout a space in order to create a coordinated look.
- Method : Infused each space with proportion, scale, bold, dark colors, and crisp, polished style to create aesthetics. More likely to use fewer statement pieces. Emphasize the virtues of decluttering, a relaxed minimalist.
- Furniture : Combination of Modern, Classic and Antiques. Decoration includes modern art and sculptures in the space.
- Style : Clean and minimalist. Zen, peaceful simplicity surrounds the modest designs of Japanese culture. Tradition have influenced Japan’s architecture and interior design aesthetic, resulting in a serene, tranquil and very cultural interior design.
- Characteristic : Bring nature (wood and bamboo) indoors through large, expansive windows. Shoji, Japanese sliding door and screen. Ofuro, tranquil tradition for soaking bath tub. Genkan and Tatami.
- Method : Clean and uncluttered living, holding tightly to balance, order, ancient customs and a love for natural beauty.
- Furniture : Mostly integrated to the wall and floor structure and floor cushions usually forgo furniture. Everything have a purpose and a place — nothing is out of order or lacking function. Modern, clean-lined and made of natural wood. Lighting are angular and modern or Japanese lantern style.
Shows different characteristic and preference of inhabitants in a community that receive no judgement.
06. The Exploration
Fig 6.0 Logistic
Fig 6.1 Parcel Distribution Diagram
Application
CUBO is a module, instead of barcode, QR code is imprinted in order to be recognised by machines and owner as ‘unlabelled city’ is designed to be user and digital friendly. QR code will have the basic profile of the owner.
After slots are booked, a postcode will be registered under the occupant and her/his QR. Monitor at the entrance of structure will process the required journey and transport CUBO into locations by scanning the QR Code.
Control Station / Monitor
06. The Exploration
A natural insulation material made from 100% flax fibres. Matted together into a non-woven matting, which can then be laid down in lofts or inserted into wall cavities.
A lightweight foamed metal which is also self-skinning. Originally developed with aeronautical applications in mind, this material has great casting capabilities. We like it because it achieves great volume and strength whilst using minimal resources. In fact the honeycomb effect found within the foam bubble matrix actually increases the structural integrity of the material due to the random diffusion of stress lines.
Alloy steels contain alloying elements (e.g. manganese, silicon, nickel, titanium, copper, chromium, and aluminum) in varying proportions in order to manipulate the steel’s properties, such as its hardenability, corrosion resistance, strength, formability, weldability or ductility.
Applications for alloys steel include pipelines, auto parts, transformers, power generators and electric motors.
Steel Construction and Structural Framework
Steel constructions are adequate for heavy loads. The rock bedded Ibiza encouraged steel construction to support movement and activities that are up above the air. The structure has a minimum height of 75 meter and it could go up to 300 meter. The construction is estimated to consume minimum 50,000 tons of steel, which is about 200 trips of shipping.
The project target recyclable materials as the structure can be expand and dismantle. Steel, for being one of the most recycled materials on the planet is the best option. Also, material used to construct CUBO is engineered to be recyclable, lightweight and strong. for e.g. Alloy, foamed aluminium Panel, Flax insulation.
The primary construction method for main structure is I-beam construction, to reduce weight without significant compromise of strength requires optimization in areas with low stresses. Therefore, it support high stress and reduce in building weight.
Steel bracing provides stability and resists lateral loads. The construction use cross bracing to reinforce structures in which diagonal supports intersect. It increase stiffness at the same time resist wind and earthquake forces. The height of the structure, the load carried by the columns and beams are required to reinforced by cross bracing and also due external forces such as wind, ranging from 4.6 mph (July) to 7.2 mph (December).
Triangle truss are the strongest as force is evenly spread through all three sides and hence it is use widely to support long span load such as weight of people, CUBO, modular framework and machines across the structures and bridges.
The modular cubic space, CUBO, will be travelling within the structure on the rail (Plug-in) or beneath the rail (track way for CUBO). Details of the machines are demonstrated as following.
Machine A
Caravan inspired Mini Truck-avan
The Super Grip
Fig 6.12 Super Grip’s Top
Machine C
The Super Lift
The Super Lift transfers CUBO to Super Grip and to be slotted into Slotting Tower Square Nest.
Fig 6.13 Super Lift’s Top
Fig 6.14 Diagram of working machines
Into Modular Framework (Drawer Tower)
Located at the voids between platforms (refer to figure 5.1). The idea is to use the concept of a drawer to produce a movable, flexible architecture. The ‘Drawer’ structure contain slots for inhabitants to get their CUBO slotted into the Drawer. It can be easily checked in/checked out and move into another area. However, this development only manage to be built after the city grows bigger.
Fig 6.16 Details of Drawer Technology
Fig 6.15 Exploded Drawer Technology
06. The Exploration
Fig 6.17 Illustration of themepark rides as transport
Fig 6.18 Direction and speed of themepark rides
07. Connection
Connection to Existing Site
The project aim to connect abandoned pieces and inactive area and thus the structure runs on top of mountains and bangalow housing which has average 2-3 storey height.
Exclude city and airport site, the rest of the structures are built on sloppy contours and above vegetations.
The gridded structure allow trees to penetrate through space thus minimise area of tree cutting. The structure also designed to have minimum of 75 meter height to allow sufficient daylighting into space, existing structure, and living organism under built structure.
08. Visualising
The neutral modular structure that encourage mobility. It shows the environment before people inhabit into the space.
The environment after people inhabit into the space. The neutral space that could adapt and accommodate different people, absorbing different culture and voices.
Unlabelled city tells a story that things should not be subjectively labelled. ‘Ghost in the Shell’, a movie of a cybernetic world, a girl who tries to find her identity says, “what we do define us”. What the space does is what define the space, regardless on time.
The constant of this city is change. Not only the form, the use, the definition, the speed, the environment, and the culture change over time. The city is not a place to make people stay, is to interact, make contact and be who you are in an penetrable environment space is just a medium. It allows people to hop from places to places, countries to countries.
It is an experiment that shows the coexistence of the contrast; everyone is same but different, spaces that are chaotic but uniform. Everyone is working in their pace, in the same place but in different space. An experiment that emphasize on the indifference of people but shares common interest or purpose in life. Being different is common.
The modular structure framework and spaces are to adapt and expand as it develops, building conditions for the future. To provide immediate space to react with immediate actions. The definition of space changes accordingly to different time and need, created to be responsive and portable.
Unlabelled city is a portable city that turned us into space carrier. It is an alternative to live the world as different as things are.
BLOG LINK - https://jzone5.wordpress.com/ VIDEO LINK https://youtu.be/S0_CwwLmwMQ
11. Precedence
“A house is a machine for living in.” It expresses that houses are tools we use to live and we happen to live inside them. A house is an efficient tool to help provide for the necessities of life. An armchair is a machine for sitting in. Decoration and extra frills are not necessary. Corbusier argued that living in efficient house-machines we can be more productive and more comfortable (Morse, 2015).
“When
The portable dwelling machine provides solutions for post-war shortage of housing due to its incorporation of new materials, inplementation of sustainable technologies, and its ease of assembly and mass-production. The Dymaxion House if self-sufficiency, flat-packaged and can be shipped throughout the world (Gorman & John, 2005).
The inspiration for the Pompidou Centre in Paris, The Fun Palace would challenge the very definition of architecture, for it was not even a conventional ‘building’ at all, but rather a kind of scaffold or framework, enclosing a socially interactive machine - a virtual architecture merging art and technology. In a sense, it was the realization of the longunfulfilled promise of Le Corbusier’s claims of a technologically informed architecture and the ‘machine for living’. It was not a museum, nor a school, theatre, or funfair, and yet it could be all of these things simultaneously or at different times. The Fun Palace was an environment continually interacting and responding to people (Hobart & Colleges, 2005).
Potteries Thinkbelt envisioned the dilapidated industrial infrastructure of the North Staffordshire Potteries and transformed into a high-tech university. His interest in mobility and movement within architecture are desmonstrated in this project. Price acknowledged that architecture was too slow in solving immediate problems so he opposed the development of permanent buildings that were limited for a particular function. Buildings needed to be constructed for adaptability because of the unpredictability of the future use of these spaces. Dismantling architecture and making it disappear into unconventional systems (Sara, 2012).
La Villette has become known as an unprecedented type of park, one based on “culture” rather than “nature.” As part of Tschumi’s overall goral to induce exploration, movement, and interaction, he scattered 10 themed gardens throughout the large expansive site that people would stumble upon either quite literally or ambiguously. Each themed garden gives the visitors a chance to relax, meditate, and even play.
Tschumi’s lines are essentially the main demarcated movement paths across the park. Unlike the follies, the paths do not follow any organizational structure; rather they intersect and lead to various points of interest within the park and the surrounding urban area. Only when a visitor stumbles along a folly or a garden is the scale reduced and the visitor is able to reorient themselves within the larger context. As with the Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts (1976-1981), Parc de la Villette seems to be a critical manifestation of urban life and activity where space, event, and movement all converge into a larger system (Souza, 2011).
Most houses are conceptually vertebrate. That is, in addition to their literal, necessary condition of structure they are metaphorically vertebrate. They have a center, usually a hearth or a stair; their roofs pitch from the center, and their construction exhibits a concern for an overall centrality. The center expresses both the functional core and conceptual unity of the house. In House X, the center is nothing (Eisenman Architects, 1975).
Division, isolation, inequality, aggression, destruction, all the negative aspects of the Wall, could be the ingredients of a new phenomenon: architectural warfare against undesirable conditions, in this case London. This would be an immodest architecture committed not to timid improvements but to the provision of totally desirable alternatives. The inhabitants of this architecture, those strong enough to love it, would become its Voluntary Prisoners, ecstatic in the freedom of their architectural confines.
Contrary to modern architecture and its desperate afterbirths, this new architecture is neither authoritarian nor hysterical: is the hedonistic science of designing collective facilities that fully accommodate individual desires. From the outside this architecture is a sequence of serene monuments; the life inside produces a continuous state of ornamental frenzy and decorative delirium, an overdose of symbols (Lucarelli, 2011).
“Pneumacosm is your very own living planet, made of plastic and functioning like an electric light bulb. Plug it into the sockets of existing urban frameworks and appreciate life in three dimensions, immersed in the surrounding environment. Thousands and thousands of Pneumacosms are shaping a new urban landscape.”
Pneumacosm, “the respiration of the cosmos,” is a housing unit made of inflatable plastic that functions like a light bulb within a vertical urban structure. When this unit is “plugged” into the building’s façade, it is ready to be turned on. The unit is accessed via corridors added to the building while the interior of the sphere is divided into a common area and several smaller spaces designed to
It is nice looking, with its translucent green double bubble mask, prismatic eyepieces, and groovy power pack, but the cool factor explodes once you realize what it is and what it’s meant to do. When you realize you get to wear it as a mind-expansion device that is meant to completely change your relationship to your environment—your personal, physical, and social world—what’s not to love?
The art, architecture, and design group Haus-Rucker-Co. was formed in 1967 by Laurids Ortner, Günther Zamp Kelp, and Klaus Pinter. They were all about creating and re-creating space and environment in new and unusual ways, rocking the how-we-perceive-space-and-environment boat to the point of capsizing it, need be. To be honest the idea of getting to view the world from the specific visual perspective of a fly is only mildly compelling to me. But the idea of altered perception, of getting a heretofore unknown and impermissable point of view, and the mind-expansion factor, with its possibility to change the way am in the world, totally excites (Popeson, 2011).
on the same level as Utopias in Paris, Haus Rucker-Co in Vienna, Graham Stevens in London and Ant Farm in California (Architectuul, 2017).
Fig 10.1 Le Corbusier
Villa savoye is a house with an architectural style of simple shapes, clean lines, open floor plans, large windows, and comfortable furniture. is enough to live comfortably and productively.
am working on a problem, never think about beuty but when have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, know it is wrong.”
Fuller looked for ways to improve human shelter by applying modern technology to make shelter more comfortable, economically available and efficient. He focused on lightweight construction and exploring geometries. He discovered that if a spherical structure was created from triangles, it would have unparalleled strength (BFI, n.d.).
Fig 10.2 Villa Savoye
Fig 10.5 Dymaxion House
Fig 10.4 Geodesic Dome, Twelve Around one (1981)
Fig 10.6 Cedric Price
The Architects
Fig 10.7 The Fun Palace
Fig 10.8 Potteries Thinkbelt
Fig 10.3 R. Buckminster Fuller
Fig 10.9 Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette, Paris
Fig 10.10 Peter Eisenman’s House X
Fig 10.11 Rem Koolhaas’s Exodus
Fig 10.12 Pneumacosm (1967-1971) by Haus- Rucker-Co
Fig 10.13 Oase No. 7 (1972) by Haus-Rucker-Co
11. Precedence
“The only thing that is radical is space we don’t know how to inhabit. This means space where we have to invent the ways to act and to live.” Lebbeus wood (Alison, Brayer, Migayrou & Spiller, 2007).
am interested in architecture that evoke different dimension of thinking to invent another way of living in this world which engrossed with technology.
“The Unlabelled City” encourages mobility within architecture. It is designed to allow portability and flexibility of rooms to accommodate the framework. Due to its unconventional typology, several references in 1960s are studied in order to make the project achievable.
The influence of radical groups in 1960s is seen in the shift from conceiving architecture conceived as static building alone to identifying architecture as a form of cultural critique and finally as a social and political practice.
Some of the approaches focused on emerging cultural conditions, such as mobility and flexibility, whilst others, such as those of Constant Nieuwenhuys and Yona Friedman, saw their utopias as instruments of societal change. What often related these approaches architecturally were mega-structures that could be ‘plugged-into’ or ‘clipped-onto’, providing a framework which could be modified, adapted and extended.
The most well-known of the first group are Archigram, formed at the Architectural Association in London in 1961. Using various formats including (fan)zines, comic strips, poetry and radical statements, they produced a vision of a consumerist city, made possible through a faith in technology and the optimism of a time before the oil crisis of the seventies and the realisation of the finite nature of natural resources. Although Archigram were eschewed a directly political stance, their vision of a dynamic architecture inflecting contemporary culture influenced other groups, including those who used Archigram’s systems to imagine a socially and politically engaged architecture.
One such group was Archizoom, whose name was a direct reference to Archigram’s 4th (fan)zine issue entitled, ZOOM! Amazing Archigram. Founded in Florence in 1966 by by four architects, Andrea Branzi, Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello, Massimo Morozzi, and two designers, Dario Bartolini and Lucia Bartolini, Archizoom’s work was an ironic response to Archigram’s consumerist logic and their desire to detach architecture from politics. They led the Anti-design or Radical movement in Italy producing a number of projects and essays that critiqued Modernism and explored flexible and technology-based approaches to urban design. A related group, also based in Florence and formed in the same year by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, was Superstudio. They criticized mainstream architecture for ignoring and aggravating environmental and social problems, designing polemical projects that imagined dystopian worlds, using an infinite grid as a recurring motif for a continuous and uniform environment. Also related to the Radical movement were Gruppo Strum, founded in 1971 in Turin by Giorgio Cerretti, Pietro Derossi, Carlo Gianmarco, Riccardo Rosso and Maurizio Vogliazzo. The group saw architecture as a means of participating in the social and political protests of the 1960s through organising seminars and distributing free copies of their fotoromanzi (picture-stories).
New Babylon is an anti-capitalist city. It was to be a series of linked transformable structures. Constant defined unitary urbanism as a rethinking of the perceived order of the city and its structure. Rather than thinking of the city as a fractured system of individual parts, Constant conceived the city as an all-encompassing structure. New Babylon makes “use of already-known architectural parts in order to fabricate a new unknown” through the complex interactions of real and imagined structures, new urban forms emerge through the patterning of spaces. The impact of this dialogue on architectural discourse encouraged many contemporary and experimental groups of architects and artists to re-think and re-imagine how architecture could be discussed as a relational enterprise that both impacts and is influenced by the diverse forces of built and social environments (Wigley, 1998).
A new architecture has to be invented. The Continuous Movement represented their thinking in architecture. It is an architectural model for total urbanisation. Their anti-architectural proposals used grid systems as a way to mediate space. They criticized mainstream architecture for ignoring and aggravating environmental and social problems, designing polemical projects that imagined dystopian worlds, using an infinite grid as a recurring motif for a continuous and uniform environment (Superstudio, 2012).
social convention and conservatism The denizens of a given society (OneState, Diaspar, or Middle-Class North America for example) being ‘squares’ in a picnic-blanket grid of social strictures that expands into notions of the (social, political, electrical) power grid we are in reality both bound by and woefully dependent on. Living ‘off-grid’ then, implies the kind of transcendental lifestyle seen as both virtuously and threateningly subversive, encompassed by a range of figures from Thoreau to the Unibomber. In the quote above though, Koolhaas referring specifically to the grid plan characteristic of modern cities. The structured, hierarchic system of blocks supersedes the natural landscape that lies beneath it, in way that frames the grid as already unreal. The grid set up as a kind of game-board on which the metropolis plays its own development. The city grid becomes the game-board of urbanism (Superstudio, 2012).
Archizoom though that consumerism and modernism’s logics should be taken to their extreme. Archizoom’s work was an ironic response to Archigram’s consumerist logic and their desire to detach architecture from politics. They led the Anti-design or Radical movement in Italy producing a number of projects and essays that critiqued Modernism and explored flexible and technology-based approaches to urban design.
Infinitely extending grid, partial lines symbolizing walls, natural features are the only interruption. has endless, featureless space. Spaces are filled with rocks and branches. Tents, appliances and motorcycles for basic needs. No Stop city symbolises emancipation through inexpressive, catatonic architecture. Society freed from alienation. Mass production to produce infinite urban decors. People can be anyone, anywhere.
Changing the world using the the power being critiqued, re arrangement, learning how to inhabit the world differently instead of re creating worlds. Recomposing with what’s available. The principle behind the No-Stop City was the idea that advanced technology could eliminate the need for a centralized modern city. The group members wrote, “The factory and the supermarket become the specimen models of the future city: optimal urban structures, potentially limitless, where human functions are arranged spontaneously in a free field, made uniform by a system of micro-acclimatization and optimal circulation of information.” The drawings and photomontages that constitute the project were intended to demonstrate these ideas rather than to serve as the plan for an actual city (Artemel, 2013).
This plan, drawn by Branzi, illustrates a fragment of a metropolis that can extend infinitely through the addition of homogenous elements adapted to a variety of uses. Free-form organic shapes—representing park areas—and residential units are placed haphazardly over a grid structure, allowing for a large degree of freedom within a regulated system. Like a replicating microorganism, the city seems to subdivide and spread, lacking center or periphery.
10.6
Archizoom + Superstudio
“Superarchitettura (1966) is the architecture of superproduction, superconsumption, superinduction to consume, the supermarket, the su-perman, super gas.” Furniture jokes displayed at Superarchitettura 1966, aesthetics of pop art and mass consumption.
UFO is Architects inspired by the Radical design movement saw discotheques as the perfect spaces to explore multidisciplinary practice and enjoy creative freedom.
As Italy emerged from World War II in the 1960s and 70s, the country found itself in need of reinvention. With the shadow of Mussolini and fascism looming large, the country set out to rebuild itself economically, culturally and socially. Out of this period of great transformation and uncertainty came the avant-garde designs by architects from the Radical design movement.
These architects, constrained by what they saw as the limits of post-war modern design, wanted to redefine the role of architecture in society. Inspired by the opportunity for experimentation, many viewed discotheques as an ideal vehicle for their creative drives. Innovative architects like Gruppo 9999, Superstudio and UFO designed a number of nightlife spaces that opened across the country.
Bamba Issa took its inspiration from a Disney comic book, Donald Duck and The Magic Hourglass, which UFO felt was “an allegory for capitalism, its arrogance and shortcomings”. The club’s design reflected the comic’s look: it had large lanterns, hourglass-shaped furniture, a DJ booth apparently on a flying carpet.
“Radical design is known for not having produced that many buildings; it’s very conceptual in its thinking,” says the exhibition’s co-curator, Sumitra Upham. “They weren’t really interested in the commercial aspects of being architects. These discos were among the few examples of radical design that ever got built.
“To be honest, think the discos were the only places that would have their designs. They were a new kind of neutral space where there were no boundaries between disciplines like architecture, art and music.”
Others were like nothing else. Florence’s Space Electronic, the work of a radical design group called 9999 was a former engine repair shop, decorated with furnishings made out of discarded washing machine drums and refrigerator casings. By day, its dancefloor hosted an experimental architecture school: for 1971’s Mondiale festival, the ground floor was flooded, and a vegetable garden was planted upstairs.
“The aim was to restore the architect’s role, to more directly contribute to the transformation of the city’s architecture towards better social justice,” says Gruppo Strum’s Pietro Derossi. “The question we asked ourselves was this: how can the architect’s work contribute to this improvement?” Their La Fine Del Mondo in Turin was an industrial container done up with multicoloured plastic seating, movable bars, partitions and towers: the self-styled pluri-disco-teca could be configured in different ways for different events, which ranged from fashion shows to music nights for Turin’s factory workers.
“This was a platform to expand their practice and to be experimental – there were no boundaries in these spaces between architecture, art and music. These were all disciplines they were interested in exploring but felt that perhaps the parameters surrounding modern architecture at that time were quite limiting and didn’t allow them to play outside of it. In comparison to a gallery or a traditional music venue, here were spaces where various disciplines could come together, that existed in the underground.”
Some discos would host theatre performances and vegetable gardens, others were inspired by Mickey Mouse or could only be entered through a boutique. The diversity of styles show the lack of a unified design manifesto but the exhibition ties the disparate spaces together through different ways, Upham says.
“It didn’t feel like a movement in the sense of there being criteria to follow and they’re all inspired by different sources, but each of them is utopian and futuristic in their vision. They’re all experimenting with different themes and ideas in their own way.” (Petridis, 2015).
Fig 10.6 Superstudio, 1966
Fig Constant Nieuwenhuys’s New Babylon
Fig 10.6 Continuous Monument
Fig 10.6 Archizoom, No Stop City
The Radical Movements
Fig 10.6 Radical Disco, Italy, UFO
Fig
Superarchitettura (1966)
Fig 10.6 Space Eletronic, Florence
The co-dependent relationship between architecture and nightlife is the at the forefront of the exhibition the manner in which these spaces transfigure in the moment into something ecstatic, even transcendental.
“What’s interesting about discos is that they’re not viewed as obviously architectural they’re not historicised within a design context. Their exteriors are often done up in a way that conceals their identity from the outside, which makes it an even more interesting experience when you go inside and all of a sudden you’re confronted with this theatrical spectacle.
There’s something about the drama of subcultures and nightlife movements that, when architecture responds to it, makes for really exciting design.”
As is befitting for such an organic movement, the photographs themselves were mostly taken by the architects themselves, who were also artists in their own right. As Upham notes, “very few of them were entrepreneurial and wouldn’t have hired a professional photographer to shoot the space.”
Despite providing a much-needed form of creative release during a period of astonishing Italian creativity – think cinema, fashion and automative design – this fertile time was short-lived and actually pre-dates the ‘Italo-Disco’ of Mr. Fiagio and Giorgio Moroder. Interestingly enough, most of them are still open today and now house vast commercial superclubs. A dubious legacy for ‘radical’ architects perhaps, but for Upham, this is a necessary part of the lifecycle of a nightlife space.
“All nightclubs have a lifespan. These discos were a response to a moment in time, and the fact that some of them closed within a year or two was really an aspect of what they were built to do.
“The way people enjoy and consume nightlife is ever evolving, and if spaces aren’t able to adapt or reinvent themselves to respond to contemporary life then guess the spaces would ultimately collapse.” (Sritharan, 2016).
Ron Herron proposed building massive mobile robotic structures, with their own intelligence, that could freely roam the world, moving to wherever their resources or manufacturing abilities were needed. Various walking cities could interconnect with each other to form larger ‘walking metropolises’ when needed, and then disperse when their concentrated power was no longer necessary. Individual buildings or structures could also be mobile, moving wherever their owner wanted or needs dictated (Janku, 2011).
This provocative project suggests a hypothetical fantasy city, containing modular residential units that “plug in” to a central infrastructural mega machine. The Plug-in City is in fact not a city, but a constantly evolving megastructure that incorporates residences, transportation and other essential services--all movable by giant cranes.
Persistent precedents and concerns of modernism lay at the heart of Plug-In City’s theoretical impulse, not limited to the concept of collective living, integration of transportation and the accommodation of rapid change in the urban environment. In his book Archigram: Architecture without Architecture, Simon Sadler suggests that “The aesthetic of incompleteness, apparent throughout the Plug-In scheme and more marked than in megastructural precedents, may have derived from the construction sites of the building boom that followed the economic reconstruction of Europe.”
Dissatisfaction with this status quo pushed the experimental architectural collective to dream of alternative urban scenarios that flied in the face of the superficial formalism and dull suburban tendencies common to British modernism of the time. (Merin, 2013).
Instant city explored the possibilities of contaminating the monotonous urban life of smaller cities with the most exciting contemporary urbanity by means of the perceptive activation of their inhabitants: The idea was to use audiovisual devices, leisure installations, and exhibitions, transported in colossal, ludic, and amusing transmitting agents, airships that on alighting on innocent “sleeping towns” transformed their appearance irreversibly, including them in an active metropolitan system, the instant city (Atributosurbanos, n.d.).
The Plug-In City, along with other projects such as The Walking City or The Instant City, suggested a nomadic way of life and, more importantly, a liberation from the modernist answer of suburbia.
Fig 10.6 Walking City (1964) Archigram, Ron Herron
Fig 10.6 Section, The Plug-In City (1964) Archigram, Peter Cook
Fig 10.6 The Plug-In City (1964) Archigram, Peter Cook
Fig 10.6 Radical Disco, Italy, UFO
Fig 10.6 Radical Disco, Italy, UFO
Fig 10.6 Axo, The Plug-In City (1964) Archigram, Peter Cook
Fig 10.6 Instant City, Archigram, Peter Cook
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