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ner Wlthout wntten permrssion lrom the publiSher, except rn the coolext of re'llei'IS.

PrOjeCt edmog Clare Jacobson Text mng Beth Hamson 8l<tonal iiSSIStance NICOla Bednarek Design Jan Haux

Specral thanks to Nettle AIJian. Ann Alter, Janet Behnrng.

Penny Chu. Jan Crghano. Marl< Lamster, Nancy Eklund Later.

Lrnda Lee. Evan Schoninger. Jane Shemman, Lottchen Shiv­

ers, Scott Tennent. Kathanne Smalley, Jennifer Thompson,

and Deb Wood of Pnnceton Architectural Press

-Kevm C Lippert, publisher

Library of Congress Catalogmg-rn-Publicatron Data

Mobile· the art of portable architecture I Jennifer Siegal,

edrtor, foreword by Andrer Codrescu preface by Robert Kranenburg

pcm

Includes IHbhographrcal references

ISBN 1-56898-334-4

1 ButiOngs Portable 2 !Jghtwerght constructm 1 S!egaJ Jeonrler. 1965-

NA8480 M598 2002

720' 4--«21 2002000854

All rmages courtesy of the contnbutors unless othefWise noted

page D02: Office of Mobile Design.

page 008. Collection Office of Mobile Design.

(N York Oxford page 01 0: Allan D Wallrs. Wheel Estate ew

University Press. 1991), p. 54

page 012. George McKay. Senseless Acts of Beauty(LondOn·

Verso. 1996). p. 37

0 n Futures page 015. Jrm Burns, Arthropods. New esrg

(NewYOII<. Praeger Publishers, 1971), p 133

Every reasooabte attempt has been made to tdenllfy owners

of copyrrght Errors or omtssoons will be corrected rn subse· quent editiOns

010 ANORB COORESOJ I FOREWORD

012 ROBERT KRONENBURG I PREFACE

016 JEN~< FER SIEGAl I TH!: AGE OF NEW NOMADISM

030 FESTO 044 LOT/EK 078 THE MARK FISHER STUDIO 090 PUGH + SCARPA

052 fTL HAPPOLD 062 DOUG JACKSON/LARGE

098 ACCONCI STUDIO

I 08 OFFICE Of MOBILE DESIGN

070 MICHAEL A. FOX/KDG

In memory of my grandfather, Abraham Lederman, a mobile entrepreneur. Clare Jacobson, my eo,lor, lor her <levo!Joo to her craft

Pnnceton Architectural Press. I~ shanng n and QIVIng Benny Chan. my lnend and photographer ol all tKlllt Olilce

shape to my VISIOn. of Mobile Oes~gn wor1<

The flUid members ol Offrce of Mobrle Oesign. Elmer Barco, Mostly, I acknOWledge and thank deeply my lam,ly-Garl,

Joo Racek. Ashley Moore, Thao Nguyen, Arooa Wrtte. Greg Steven. Archard. and Sidney Slegal-lor1nsp~ratoo OM!

Roth. and Lon Jay and support

Geraldine Forbes, for her steadfast belrel and Woodbury

U111verS1Iy, lorlhe rnstrtutooal wpport

My former designlburld students at WooiJJurY U111verS1ty

runng the spnng and summer ot 1998 v.'hOse boundleSS

passoons for the~ corMue to rnsptie me

Todd Erlandson (burld1ng), Robert GonzaleZ!lheOI'Yl. and 81

ACIINOVIUDGlMfNT$ 009

I'm for portable houses and nomad1c furniture. Anyth1ng you can't fold up and take With you is a blight on the env1ronment, and an msult to one's liberty. I believe In the tent, the card table, and the tra1ler The past two decades have witnessed a huge Increase m nomadism. For every housing development that carves up the land, a flock of houses on wheels and

pontoons takes off somewhere else. Where IS the great literature of the mobile home, the trailer park, the perpetual camper, the floatmg boathouse?

. American Society has become mobile yet it still depends, for the most part, on statlo~ary dwell~ngs But While stationary, most new Amencan houses are Impermanent. Although a

house in a subdivision is not portable, it 1s cer­tainly interchangeable with any other house 1n any other subdivision-and the subdivisions themselves often evaporate. This evaporation is sometimes brought about by company relocations, or by the city moving closer to what was once almost country. Quite often, suburbs become the abodes of new Immi­grants who have come to America in search of stability, after leaving behind old houses that Will long outlive their new homes. The house 1n SibiU, Romama, where 1 was born, was built 1n the seventeenth century and still stands Nearly every Amencan house I've lived m has long ago been demolished to make room tor some other building. There is a delicious (though painful) paradox here: Amencans long

for stability, but all they get 1s stationary Impermanence. No wonder, then, that many of us long to become permanent nomads, snails with houses on our backs, Touareg tnbesmen, and Gypsies.

We certamly cannot Indulge in nostalg1a for home, because most American houses are not homes. Grown-ups will rarely revisit the places where they grew up because nothmg remains of the1r first home, their grade school, or their tree house. The nuclear family has long ago scattered, buying new houses every few years, always putting down shallow roots. Paradoxically, again, then, a moving house becomes more permanent than a stationary house, and a better means of keep1ng connec­tiOns between family members and thus a

sense of rootedness: In your mob1le dwelling you can v1s1t your family all the bme

Today, the workplace 1s movmg mto the home. thanks to decentrahzmg computer tech­nology. A new def1mbon of the house 1s in the works. Once an e~clus1vely domesbc domam. the house of the future Will have to allow for work. There will be no escape m the work­connected house from pagmg dev1ces. tele­phones, and surveillance eqUipment The pre­diCtions of sc1ence-fict1oneers w111 doubtlessly come true: The house Will become a work-farm prison w1th hm1ted opportumt1es for escape. Smce everyone w111 then always be at home, what IS the pomt of keeping the house 1n one place? It w111 matter little where the plugged-in house IS Smce 1t is always present in the global. decentralized hyperspace of functiOn, 1ts location will be irrelevant. You can take your physical reality practically anywhere. w1thout tear of losmg e1ther your JOb or your commumty. You will always encounter new people and v1s1t old fnends

A long lime ago, the word "house· was the best argument for the 1mpossib1hty of transla­tion. An Amencan house was not a French mat-

son or a Spamsh casa. wh1ch was ev1dent to anyone who'd been 1ns1de a Mediterranean v111a or a walled-In Moonsh casa 1n C<idiz Houses embodied local culture more than any­thmg else. even more than human bemgs themselves. Humans adapted more eas1ly to new conditions and had more •umversal" mechamsms than houses. wh1ch.m the1r com­mitment to geography. weather, h1story. and the humans who lived m them. were utterly and wholly spec1f1c Th1s Will no longer be the case m our global, decentralized. portable world. You will be able to transport your skeuo­morphs, younostalgias. and your roots to wher­ever you w1sh

ANDREI C00RESCU I FOREWORD 011

Ol2 ROO<RT KRONHIBUAG I PREFACE

It is in our genes to be nomadic. For nearly all of human-kind's history, just to survive we have found it necessary to live our lives on the move. As the enduring protohuman spec1es, Homo sapiens followed a hunter-gatherer exis­tence, shifting "home" from place to place as requ1red by the demands of hunger and cli­mate. Th1s movement was often seasonal and

a pattern, but the flexibility and adaptability 1t engendered m our species also enabled much bigger geographic sh1fts to take place as envi­ronmental change and natural disasters made reg1ons of the earth uninhabitable.

In the last ten thousand years most of us have settled down somewhat, and become used to farmed food delivered to the centers of commerce and industry that have become our cities. However, some groups of people never stopped moving. On every continent there are traditional cultures that have refused to respond to the sometimes extreme pressures to take up a sedentary lifestyle. Without doubt 11 is their traditions, the1r culture, the1r identity that they seek to retain-but 1t is their mobile buildmgs that have made 1t possible for them

to keep moving, and to stay connected to their ancestry. As they were m the1r forebears' time, these buildmgs are still made by the people who use them, to patterns developed over thousands of generations, and are st1ll able to accommodate the ex1genc1es of life on the move Such mobile structures are the pattern book that 1nsp1red the permanent architectural forms m wh1ch most of us now live, and they still hold lessons for contemporary des1gn 1n their econom1c, lightweight, fleXIble approach

to prov1dmg shelter. Now 1t seems that a return to mob1le 11v1ng

IS 1mminent for many more of us. In North Amer­ica, 1t 1s a common phenomenon for retired peo­ple, released from the burden of a llfebme's work, to sell the house, buy a tra1ler home. and

become •snowbirds Movmg between the fixed homes of the1r children and grandchil­dren, they follow the clement weather from north to south 1n a m1gratory pattern s1m11ar m effect, if not m ethos or style, to that of the native Amencans who mhablted this landscape for the thousands of years before the Immi­grant nation was formed.

The change IS bemg brought about by the information age, which has made 1t pOSSible for many of us who are st1ll1mmersed 1n the world of work to also seek out a mobile hie Within a week of writing th1s p1ece I Will begm a three­month, round-the-world JOUrney of more than twenty two thousand m11es Though I have some stoppmg pamts 1dent1f1ed, I have few other details about these locatiOns and no set

R06E'tl KRON!:N1JIJRG I PIIE~ACE 013

rtmerary But wrth my Apple rBook computer (whrch werghs less than frve pounds) and my Motorola Timeport In-band mobrle phone (just four ounces), I wrll be able to connect rnstantly to all the people I work wrth, obtarn data on almost anythmg I care to find out about, make travel and accommodation arrangements. manage my fmances. and buy almost anythrng and have rt wartrng for me wherever and when­ever I amve.

That rs frne for me, an rndivrdual, wrth my relatrvely lrmrted needs, makrng use of the buildrngs erected for simrlar travelers While my physical needs for food and shelter are conventional, however, many human actrvrties are not so srmple, concernrng vanous-sized groups of people often undertaking complex

01 4 ROBERT KRONHIBURG I PREFACf

activities-{;ommerce, educatron, manufactur • ing, health care, and entertarnment, to name JUS! a few.

Now there is an ever-rncreasing need for these functrons to be more flexrble and adapt· able, in both applicatron and locatron, than they have ever been in the past To be ultrmately flexible and ultrmately adaptable these actrvr­ties must be sheltered by mobile archrtecture Are architects and designers ready for thrs challenge? The answer, it would seem, rs yes-because for decades they have been exposed to the potential of the portable envi· ronment. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s it was the work of high-profile expenmenters like Buckminster Fuller, Archigram, and the Metabolists. More recently there has been a spate of live projects for real clients with real problems, which have proven that mobile archrtecture is not just somethrng that rs sometimes buill in srtuatrons where there is simply no other solutron. More and more, an enlightened client understands that there is a performance advantage rn going mobile compared to the standard, statrc burldrng solutron.

The traditional building forms that have always informed our understanding of the meaning of architecture-to provide shelter, a

· tal sense of place, a mirror of cultural and socre . endeavors-still inform the new mobile archr· lecture. Tents, lightweight structural frames, and wheeled and floating structures figure rn the range of recent projects. However. the possrbilities of new technology are also shap· . f' ld Pneumatrc. rng the development of the re · . tensrle and kinetrc structures provrde the

' . . d chrtectural opportunrty for new dedrcate ar d to both forms. Smart burldings that respon

d ds are now envrronmental and user eman . nd -erecting being burl! as are self-deployrng a

' 1 hen not rn buildrngs that may remain dorman w h t change rn use or berng transported, but t a

form and volume when occupred. Perhaps most srgnificant rs that mobile archrtecture, which was in the recent past usually treated with contempt as the "cheap" alternatrve or ignored entrrely in favor of temporary building solutions that are wastefully demolished when therr short penod of usefulness is over, rs now berng seen rn a very different light. It rs not only a forward-lookrng, ecologrcally aware alternatrve to permanent buildrng, but also an expenmental resource for determrning the way that future permanent buildrngs mrght be made-flexible rn operation and economic rn the use of materials.

Mobile architecture is more than just an ephemeral solution for a temporary problem. It is a genre of building that has always been there, the prototyprcal human shelter that first established the human need and desire to make "home." It is linked to our definitive char· acter as mobile berngs, provrdrng our need for stabrlity, continuity, and a sense of place­even though that place may not be Ired to a specrfic geographrc location. With the recent advances rn communrcatrons, burldrng maten· als, and constructron technology, mobile archr·

lecture provrdes new possrbrhtres for enabling the actrvrtres assocrated wrth the sophrsticated communrty of rndrvrduals who make up the world today. It rs also updating the rmagery of archrtecture from somelhrng burl! for a static, autocratic society, to somethrng flexrble. demo· cratrc, and free

016 JENNIFER SIEGAL I THE AGE OF NEW NOMADISM

The mformat1on age whets our appetite for the exploratiOn of the unknown. As mquisitive social beings and natural explorers of the universe, we are standing at a new threshold of curios1ty and movement. We are poised for more than sharing ideas over vast distances; we are ready physi­cally to actualize these explorations. Biological and technological advancements reveal them­selves in our everyday lives, echomg prophe­cies and environmental VISions from American pulp science fiction. Architecture today rolls, flows, mtlates, breathes, expands, multiplies, and contracts, fmally ho1stmg 1tself up, as Arch1gram predicted in the early 1960s, to go 1n search of 1ts next user

While architecture's purpose remams constant-prov1dmg shelter from the natural

elements and community among 1ts inhabi­tants-mobile and portable structures her­ald the dawn of the age of new nomad1sm. The applications and uses are ilmllless. these buildings have no borders. Their mate­rial palette, des1gn style, and transportatiOn method are diverse. Mobile architecture, then, "can be defmed not merely in terms of movable structures, but rather as a way of intelligently inhabiting a specific environ­ment at a specific time and place in a way that better reacts to increasingly frequent social shifts."

This book represents a range of creative forces behind mobile architecture today. My own interest in mobile architecture, developed at Office of Mobile Design, occurs at the inter­section of portability and sustainability. As a traveler on a roving circwt of like-minded de­Signers, architects, and engmeers, I have been mspired by the work included m this volume

Festo and its founder Alex Thallemer are the creators of Airtecture. Their buildings are comprised of supporting structures built With a1r-mflated chambers, taking the mflatables of the 1960s to a new stratosphere.

The atmospheric fluidity of FTL Happold's deployable and demountable tens1le structures draw Inspiration from the nomad1c tents of the penpatetic civilizations, only these scrupulous­ly sheathed skeletal structures develop a new vocabulary of lightness.

When Guy Debord, a member of the S1tua­!1onist International, published the Soctety of the Spectacle in 1967, he was surely anticipat­Ing the work of Mark Fisher. If the "spectacle 1s the moment when the commodity has attamed the total occupation of social hie," then The Mark Fisher Studio's creations of portable tour­Ing rock shows and one-off live events-from the Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon tour to Walt D1sney World- have ach1eved that stature.

A growing number of architects have explored the adaptive reuse of ISO sh1ppmg containers as multifunctional, all-terrain, land­and-sea, building-block solutions, both con­crete and theoretical. Found in the work of LOTIEK, the MDU (Mob1le Dwelling Umt) SitU­ates 1tself w1thm the mobile-global d1alogue of worldwide standard1zat1on and the movement toward the mimm1zation of personal domestic artifacts. Doug Jackson of LARGE postulates

that the e-HIVE. a commumty of mod1fied mdi­VIdual sh1pp1ng contamer-hvmg umts that are networked both d1grtally and physically, will cre­ate flexible mdoor/outdoor communal spaces not seen smce Moshe Safd1e's Hab1tat. built for the 1967 Montreal World's Fa1r. Pugh+ Scarpa delve mto the possibihbes of the shipping con­tamer by performmg surg1cal skm mc1s1ons and exfoliating the weathered layers, transformmg the ubiQUitous box into an mhabitable Plcasso­esque re-rendenng.

M1chael A. Fox, foundmg director of MIT's KinetiC Des1gn Group (KDG), explores mtelli­gently responsive kinet1c and mobile architec­tural systems, with primary focus on reactive spat1al adaptability, mult1use applications, and automated kinetic response m regard to changmg programmatic and environmental cond1t1ons A quintessential meeting of the mach1ne and the body, h1s Interactive Kinetic Facade IS a 160-foot-long band of respons1ve "whiskers" that detect pedestrian movement and respond m a wavelike rhythm as a person walks past.

Always the aesthetic provocateur, V1to Acconc1 suggests in hiS Vehicles and Portables

that space on the run 1s life on the loose .m a plague year, 1n a t1me of AIDS, bod1es m1x wh1le dressed 1n condoms and armored w1th vagmal sh1elds-the body takes rts own housmg w1th it where ever rt goes. 1t does not come out of 1ts shell. You come to v1sit. not to stay

H1storic examples of mobile architecture descnbe a pre1ndustnaJ world not bound to place but pos­sessed by an Ideology of 1bnerant and nomad1c responses to permanence. Accord1ng to biblical h1story, over four thousand years ago Noah was called by God to bu1ld an ark capable of trans­porting the natural world and 1ts creatures to safety when the apocalypse struck Th1s may have been the f1rst portable and relocatable structure whose purpose was self-sufficient housing.

NomadiC cultures moved about for vaned reasons: locatmg m1grant food sources. adapt­ing to changmg chmat1c cond1t1ons. tradmg goods, finding communal protectiOn. and search­ing for the unknown. Of these reg1onally diS­parate cultures, many shared s1m11ar chal­lenges m their need to prov1de shelters that

JENII FER SIEGAL I THE AGE ~f NEW NCM.IOISM 017

were durable. lightweight, flexible, and ultimate­ly transportable by low-tech means. Examples of umquely formed tens1le structures made from taut skins on supportmg structures are found 1n the American lnd1an bp1, the Mongolian yurt, the Bedouin woven goat-ha1r "blacktent," and the Basque sheepherder tent/coat.

Not all portable structures evolved, howev­er. out of the stnct necess1t1es of surv1val. As every soc1ety matures, cultural and ideological themes are expressed and relayed through public performance, art, and storytelling (often dramatized today on the Internet). In medieval Italy mystery plays, performed as populist parables drawn from biblical stones, were staged m demountable theaters called "man­Siones." These platforms or booths were set up m the town marketplace or somet1mes m an eXISting bUiidmg.

ExhibitiOns and expositions have served as architectural petn dishes for cultivating new des1gn Ideas. Perhaps because of the1r tempo­rary nature, greater nsks are ventured and the wildest of dreams leg1t1mized as genuine con­tnbutions to the furthering of building technol­ogy. In an effort to be perce1ved as technolog1-

018 JEIIfiiFER SIEGAL I T~EAGE OF NEW tiOMAOISM

cally advanced, countries Will display (and fmanc1ally support) the otherwise unimagin­able, giv1ng shape to the hypothetical metrop­olis of the future. With the Great Exh1bit10n of 1851, Great Britam prov1ded an international forum for the display of manufactunng and industry, much like the present-day World Expos111on. It was here that the way was forged for a new type of mobile bu1ldmg matenal. Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, bUill in six months during 1850-51, exploited the proper­ties of cast-iron. The structure set a precedent for using a component system m building man­ufacture and s1te assembly and established itself on the forefront of lightweight, demount­able bu1ldmg systems. Unlike 1ts predecessors, "every 1tem of the building's constructiOn was meticulously planned for reuse m the new structure, even the temporary timber fencing was reused as floorboards 1ns1de." The sys­tem was successful in 1ts 1nnate logic and economy, wh1ch allowed for rapid assembly and reassembly, and could be erected 1n loca­tions remote from 1ts manufacture. The extent to wh1ch the Crystal Palace succeeded m revo­lutioniZing the buildmg mdustry or engendered

a new way of bu1ldmg 1s debatable; 1ts novelty, however, is indisputable.

Some years later, Buckminster Fuller began to work on the development of methods for producing high-quality, affordable, portable hous1ng. Like Paxton, his pnmary concerns were focused on the implementation of mass production, lightness of materials, and minimal we1ght His famous nonrhetorical quesuon­"Madam, do you know what your house weighs?"- articulates a subversive suspicion of the monumental. Fuller's proposal for the Dymaxion House (dynamic-maximum-ions) was patented in 1928 and was to be built for the 1933 World's Fair. The design was mflu· enced by technology borrowed from boat­bUIIdmg and the house was light enough to be transported by helicopter. If the house had been put into production in 1933 11 was estimated to have cost S1 ,500, when the average cost for a new home m the United States was $8,000.

In 1940 Fuller des1gned the Mechamcal W1ng, which first appeared in Architectural Forum's spec1al issue "The Des1gn Decade." As the first prototype for "plug-m" self-sufficient mobile housmg, the tra1ler contained a compact kitchen,

bathroom, and generator and was towed beh1nd an automobile. Coupled with the Butler Bms, a c1rcular steel container used for storing gra1n, the Dymax10n Deployment Umt (DDU) was the f1rst cheap and portable dwelling, ongmally Intended to be used for m11itary and Industrial workers' housing.

The advantages of a prefabncated system were becommg mcreasmgly appealing: The1r prom1se offered greater economy, speed of erection, reduction in need for Skilled labor on the site, and a higher-quality product due to factory manufacture. Other des1gners and PIO­neers began 1nvest1gat1ng similar concepts. Walter Grop1us and Hirsch Kupfer were engaged m the evolution of "knockdown buildings that can be easily assembled," developmg and later bu1ld1ng the Copper House 1n Berlin. The Berlin Growing House exhibition of 1932 show­cased Grop1us's des1gn for a factory-made, flexible system that combmed standard1zallon w1th vanab11ity Ray and Charles Eames already held a fascinallon w1th automated, machine­based processes m 1948 when they des1gned the1r Case Study house for ed1tor John Enten­za 's Arts and Architecture magaz1ne. The use of

prefabncated, commercially ava1lable products made up the1r palette of component p1eces from which "good design·• could be composed and eff1c1ent1y constructed.

Premanufactured buildmgs have also ans­en m response to vanous conditiOns of conven­ience or necessity. When there 1s a sudden, unforeseen demand and no local resources or materials, such as dunng natural disasters, materials are transported to a site for assem­bly. In 1787, Samuel Wyatt built twelve mov­able hospitals that could be dismantled and reerected w1thm an hour Without us1ng tools. More recently, 1n the Afghamstan and the Gulf wars, portable and demountable umts known as MUSTs (Medical Umt. Self-contamed, Trans­portable) were developed by and for the mili­tary They contmue to be used around the world where speed of deployment and 1mmed1ate prox1m1ty to areas of conflict are necessary

Mobile hous1ng was a fertile playground for both practitioners and theonsts throughout the twentieth century. In 1920 Le Corbusier wrote

about a French a1rcraft manufacturer that could eas1ly convert its hangars to build mob1le houses m Model T assembly-line fash1on. Le Corbus1er stated 1n LEspnt Nouveau that 11 was 'Impossi­ble to wa1t on the slow collaborations of the success1ve efforts of excavation, mason, car­penter, 101ner, tiler. plumber . Houses must go up all of a p1ece. made by mach1ne tools m a factory, assembled as Ford assembles cars, on movmg conveyer belts."

In 1937 Jean Prouve began desigmng demountable structures. Havmg prev1ously exammed prefabncated structural systems, moveable part1t1on walls, kiosks, rolling doors and skylights, and furmture on wheels, the J Prouve Workshops fabncated the prototype BLP.S. (BeaudoUin, Lads, Prouve, Strasbourg)

.lf.NNifER SIEGAL I THE AGE OF NfW UWAOISM 019

demountable house m steel, unvetled at the Stxth Expos1t10n de /'Habitation m the Salon des Arts Menagers m January 1939. Wrth two built­m beds, a drop-leaf table, kitchen, storage. shower and totlet 1t promtsed the inhabrtant comfortable holiday accommodations. In one week m 1939 demountable barrack unrts for the Corps of Engmeers were prototyped by B.L PS. "The f~rst bUilt umt was presented to the General Staff of the Engmeers Corps, assembled m three hours at Btrkenwa/d in Alsace [and) led to an tmmedtate order of 275 examples to be delivered dunng the follow­tng month."

The introductton of new materials, such as ultralight ftber-based elements replacing steel, has also been key to mobtle architecture's

ongomg evolution. From tutunstic pure-energy plasma walls to the more tenable foam panels used for short-term, relocatab/e housmg (e.g., for the mthtary, mtgrant workers. or dtsaster victims). these new matenals play on the ur­American concepts of progress through tech­nology and the right to inftmte mobility-the dream of bemg able to pack everything into the stabon wagon and start over from scratch

Of courseAmerica·s htstonca/ precedent for the mobile dwelltng was the covered or Con­estoga wagon, used by the settlers headmg west during the nineteenth century. lmtlal/y mass-produced for movmg goods to the new frontter, the pratne schooner was qutck/y con­verted and accessonzed to become a dwelling for the range-roving ptoneer famtly. Dunng the 1920s, when the automobtle was relatively affordable, a new type of domesttc-pioneer traveler began to emerge, and the pleasure of short-term travel and ovemtght excurstons was popu/anzed Images such as the Aerocar Land Yacht, destgned by Glenn Curttss, combmed the streamlined forms of the tratn and a1rp/ane to evoke a World for the mdependent and freedom­bound traveler. in 1936. Wally Byam's Atrstream

Incorporated went into production, fostenng a new dreamscape for America. With its aerody­namic appearance, the Airstream's sleek silver monocoque body was designed to move through the air like a bullet. It remains a ttme­less icon of mobility. Twenty-ftve years later the Clark Cortez Camper, predecessor to the recre­ational vehtcle (RV), combined the hitched-on trailer with the engine. Thts new hybrid package provided all the domesttc comforts of home withm reach of the steering wheel.

The Great Depression followed by the war effort required people to move where they could fmd work, and the demand for mstant or emergency housing was heightened. Dunng these years, over 200,000 trailers were mass­produced, with more than 60 percent of them located m defense-production areas Followmg the war and the passage of the Gl btl/, colleges and umversttles responded to the tnf/ux of sol­dters returntng from the war, and the corre­spondmg mcrease of married students, by introducmg the tratler to campuses.

Concurrently, Itinerant farm laborers and mtgrant factory workers m the early twentteth century were producing new examples of

homemade house-cars and wagon-tram cara­vans. These structures, born out of economic necesstty, were later mvoked m the movtes. housmg characters from the traveling evange/­tSVmtrac/e healer to the ctrcus/entertamer, m such films as Arthur Penn's 1970 Little Big Man and Fedenco Fellini's 1954 La Strada These films depict a nostalgic yet realisttc portrait of the nomad hustler who lives tn places for bnef moments, constructtng the novelty of the spec­tacle, before rolling on.

Begmning in the late 1930s and dominating the postwar years, mobile enterpnse expanded to tnc/ude "delivering, collecting, hauling, dis­tributing, as well as maktng repatrs." Wtth the tntroduction of the transtt shed and soon after the highway, the loading dock became an integral part of butldtng destgn, and the tractor­tratler truck evolved. Rep/actng smalltmmobtle busmesses, the truck enttced the mob tie entre­preneur, g1v1ng rise to a new tndustnalized landscape Soctal mteractton had moved onto the stnp, incorporatmg the dnve-tn-franchtse

restaurants. banks, liquor stores. package stores, car washes. dry cleaners, libranes-as perma­nent fixtures m the landscape.

Wtth the advent of trucking. and tn response to the postwar houstng shortage, new mobile houstng strategtes developed, mcluding the "flat-pack." Carl Koch (wtth Hudson Jack and John Callender) destgned the Acorn House tn 1945 Destgned spectftcally wtth truck trans­portatton tn mmd, thts narrow umt. constructed of thtrty-seven factory-made and -assembled component parts, had foldtng panels that opened to form livmg space and refolded for transport. Delivered to a stte tn a collapsed form, thetr condensed stze made them advan­tageous for long-distance delivery and effictent when stze, wetght, and volume were restncted.

The flat-pack strategy lives on. In 1991, the now defunct magaztne Progressive Architecture sponsored a compelttton to mcrease the quality of affordable houstng and turned to the tndustn­alized houstng sector (Referred tom the building mdustry as manufactured houstng, 97 percent of these dwellings move only once, from the fac­tory to a new trat/er "park." where they rematn permanently stted. Typtcally the building mate-

nalts a lightwetght. wooden superstructure on rts own chassts wtth a permanently ftxed set of wheels for easy transport.) The challenge of the Progresswe Architecture compelttton was to destgn and build a stngle-famliy home for under S65,000. The wmntng scheme. by AbacusArcht­tects m Boston. modtfted the assembly-/me unrt by combintng the standard module and chassts wtth the flat-pack. a htnged collapstble roof that would lie flat in transtt and unfold to form a con-ventional pttched roof on stte. Fabncated m less than a month, the modules were erected tn one day. With an emphasts on contextuality, the shotgun-style house was destgned to shp unas­sumtngly tnto a preextsltng neighborhood

The Abacus destgn addressed not only issues of efftctency and affordabtlity but also miltated a senous aesthettc cnttque of trailers As arttculated by J. B Jackson, "The Tratler has no real attachment to place." Its anonymt-ty, dtsregard for regtonal contextuailsm, and (.;: mabtltty to work wtth the contours of the natu- l

ral landscape force the mobtle dwelltng to ~

remam on the penphery of envtronmenta/ ~ destgn dtscourse makmg the argument for tis "'~,

acceptance arduous

JENNIFER SIEGAl I THE AGE Of NEW tlOMADISI.I OZI

The speclf1c1ty of the matenal palette 1s essen­tial to the body of worll represented. Histon­cally people moved whole VIllages and ham­lets when soil was exhausted or there was threat of an enemy attack. As J B. Jackson po1nts out 1n "The Movable Dwelling and How 11 Came to Amenca. ·For all their squalor med1eva1 peasant dwellings had a remarllable flex1b1hty and mobility-not only 10 that they could be taken down and reassembled else­where, but 1n that they could easily change function and change tenants .. The temporary nature of the dwelling, 1ts negligible matenal value, meant that 1t could be lightheartedly abandoned when crops failed, when war threatened, or when the local lord proved too demand1ng"

Matenals spoke of what was considered to be mobile and Immobile. where the flimsmess of the construction protected the family from the dangers of staying put. The use of wood was a language of Impermanence while the use of stone was a symbol of sohdrty or Immov­ability. Wood, a modest and abundant material

could be separated from the operation of the farm or detached and rapidly reassembled elsewhere. Th1s was preferred over stone wh1ch had lasting endurance but was not su1t~ able for transport

The Amencan pioneers had a readily and seemmgly unhm1ted material palette at the1r disposal. Wood was abundant and could be easily mampulated to provide matenal for Sim­ple structures that could be erected w1th mini­mal labor and m a relatively short lime. The development of the box house emerged, con­structed from smgle planks of wood nailed tog~ther vertically With no internal framing. The proliferation of these buildings was evident. Used as slave quarters on plantations and in mobile lumber towns and camps, they were Inexpensive and easily relocatable by railroad and later by automobile In 1895 Sears and Roebuck offered entlcmg VISual Images creat­mg a market for the ready-cut or mail-order house. As J B. Jackson noted, "The real novel­ty was that these dwellings were built, occu­pied and eventually disposed of as commOdi­ties, merchandise designed and produced to satisfy a definite market·

-::::~# ··: --~--~- ~- -

Mass-produced housing started w1th John Manmng, a London carpenter and builder who 1n 1830 des1gned the Manmng Portable Colomal cottage Des1gned to break down into compo­nent p1eces that were then small enough to be stowed for shipping, "the Manning dwelling can be seen as the beginmng of the prefabri­cation mdustry wh1ch produced products that utilized standardized interchangeable compo­nents and d1mens1onal coordination to form easily erected flexible structures." While the Manning cottage created new possibilities for the mobile-building industry, the monotony by wh1ch mass production evolved has inc1ted such responses as Edgar Kaufmann Jr.'s: "Within the great impersonality of the world of mass production and new disposability there becomes clear for the first lime the possibility of an mtense personalism as a proper balance and as a proper ennchment of life. The future of design lies in Situation design and not 1n product des1gn; products merely implement the s1tuat1ons."

A good example of situabon des1gn can be found 1n the collage of prefabricated parts 1n an ad-hoc settlement along Route 1 1n Northern

BaJa Cahforma M1le marker seventy three md1cates Campo R1vera, the Site of unschooled, fanciful architecture. S1milar to the conventional trailer park, each Campo Rivera compound stakes out a plot w1th an Airstream trailer as the keystone. Th1s central wagon g1ves nse to a tram of disparate parts: the additiOn, the out­house, and the water tank, synthesized through an mgemous and adaptive use/reuse of maten­als. Inventiveness IS shown 1n the mampulatiOn of the modules, while ind1v1dual identity 1s mamtained by using a limited palette of com­ponents and materials.

All construction projects, even those designed for monumental permanence, make use of a palette of temporary matenals. New freeways, bndges, and buildings of poured-In­place concrete rely uniformly on plywood form­work that 1s used until the matenal falls or 1s no longer valued in 1ts present (scarred and un­Sightly) state. Increasingly, scaffolding 1s the most common form of temporary works used 1n the constructiOn mdustry, because th1s modular system 1s easy to expand and demount The use of scaffoldmg as a s1mple assembly procedure was used most notably by Tadao Ando, who de-

s1gned the Karaza Theater, built 1n f11teen days m 1987 Renowned for h1s permanent buildmgs constructed w1th the use of pure concrete slabs. Ando des1gned the theater to be portable, w1th a vast ma)onty of 1ts structural elements made from locally sourced standard compo­nents Add1t1onally. one of the most well-known portable bu1ldmgs 1s the Teatro del Mondo des1gned by Aldo Ross1 for the Vemce B1ennale m 1979 Based on sixteenth-century floating pav1110ns, th1s temporary structure was built from steel scaffoldmg sheathed in wood and supported underneath by a large steel barge.

Through the 1960s, rad1cal expenments by the U.K. collective Arch1gram (short for "architec­tural telegram") were st1rnng up 1magmat1ons and sow1ng the seeds for future upnsmgs. Growmg out of the student discontent and the Indeterminacy at the end of the 1950s, protest des1gn magazmes such as Polygon, Cl1p-Klt, Megascope, and Arch1gram gave vo1ce to soc1al commentators and urban ag1tators. Members of Archigram's 1nner c1rcle developed ideas leadmg to Peter Cook's Plug-m C1ty, Denms

Crompton's Computer C1ty, and Ron Herron's Walking C1ty W1th 1ts mulhfuncllomng and lnlt­mtely reprogrammable body. detachable auxil­Iary un1ts, and telescopic legs (wh1ch connect­ed w1th other walkmg elements and w1th the ground and sea. allowmg the transfer of goods and matenals). Walk1ng C1ty was likened by the lnternatwnal Times to a war machme Noma­dism was a reoccurnng theme. even way of life, among members m the Arch1gram group They attended huge outdoor rock concerts hke Woodstock and the Rolling Stones show m Hyde Park; they traveled the lecture CirCUit, performmg as the Arch1gram Opera and tounng the UK. like a circus

In 1970, these ag1tprop themes grew mto Instant C1ty. an exploration m mdetermmacy of

,

place, where the City IS reeogmzed as a chang­Ing entity capable of respondmg to the lnhabl· tants· Immediate needs As Ron Herron noted 'The design for Instant City brought togethe; trailer umts, mflatables, lightweight structures gantnes, towers. support systems, scaffoldmg: audiO-VISual displays, projection equipment and electromc display systems The metropoli~ would arnve like the c1rcus set up shop · , oper-ate for a penod of time, and then move on

These •up-to-the-mmute environments" (a phrase comed by Reyner Banham) were devel­opmg among contemporanes around the globe Mlssmg Lmk Producbons m Vienna designed Fleder-Housmg a disposable hous,ng unrt for people With limited funds. and Golden Viennese Heart. a strategic multiuse mobile structure

designed to allow people to 1nteract directly With the forces that govern them (that IS, a City hall for commumty confrontation). Ced1rc Pnce's Phun City was a Sixty-acre. self-help festival held m the Sussex countryside m 1970. The spontanerty of the expenence was at the core of its success

Such explOSions of pop-up festival CitieS occur to this day. Notonously, Burning Man Protect draws thousands of revelers to the Black Rock Desert In northwestern Nevada every labor Day weekend. These Pllgnms brmg With them the entire Infrastructure for a small City located upon an alkali playa, where they erect a giant human figure that1s ritualistically burned at the festival's close. Three days are devoted to ntual, art, and celebration. Particl· pants see it as one of the last places on Earth where people from all walks of life, all social strata, and all POints of the compass can come together and share a common and pnmal expenence' survlvmg as a group m a challeng­Ing environment, creatmg a temporary culture of their own design, and shanng one of the most elemental expenences of our species­the mystery or f1re

Represent10g the end product of architectural 1deolog1es promot10g emancipation through industnalizat10n, the 10flatable environment. With 1ts opt1m1St1c form and fragile monumen· tality, has provided radical architects w1th a new platform. As Mark F1sher recounts. the students of pneumatic des1gn 10 England and France imhally drew 1nSp1rat1on from Fre1 Otto's 1957-60 work, particularly h1s soap· bubble expenments and water·f1lled cylindn· cal membranes The Bntish eng10eer Fredenck William Lanchester patented the f1rst pneu· matic structure 10 1917, and Walter W B1rd 101· tiated the American development called "radomes" 1n 1955 ; the students of the sixt1es embarked upon their own theoret1cal and built versions of these earlier 1deas

By the 1967 Pans Bienmal, Jean Aubert. Jean-Paul Jungmann, and Ant01ne Stmco de· buted Pneumalic Uv10g-Econom1cai·MOblle. In 1968, the1r group Utopie (whose th1nk1ng and name, like the Situallonists, denves from Henn Lefebvre), were completing their end-of-stud· 1es diploma project at the Ecole des Beaux· Arts when they found themselves exhausted

by the 1ndustnal myth and constra1nt of pre­fabncaliOn of bwld10g elements Mak10g real the theones of Lefebvre- the need for play, spontaneity, the realization of des1res and calls, the des1re to rescue utopian 1mag10allon from sc1ence fiction, to 10vest all of technolo· gy 10to da1ty life. and to bnng about 'danng gestures· and •structures of enchantment"­they began research 10to pneumatic struc­tures. "AIIow10g for a greater degree of spin· tualizallon of the machine long sought by the avant-garde, a sort of commumon 10 aeropha· g1a between surrealism and the functionalist Philosophy of d01ng the most w1th the least. mflatables would figure as the lightweight and elatmg supplement to the group's theoret1ca1 oeuvre." The1r belief was that, "Unlike conven­tional architecture, wh1ch stands rigidly to attent1on and detenorates (like a guardsman With moths in the busby), inflatables (and tents, to a lesser extent) move and are so nearly liv­Ing and breath lOg that it IS no surpnse that they have to be fed (with amps, 1f not oats). All arch1· lecture has to med1ate between an outer and an Inner environment 1n some way. but 1f you can sense a ng1d structure actually d01ng 11

(dnpp10g sounds. t1les fly1ng off, wmdows rat­tling), 1! usually means a malfunction An Inflat­able. on the other hand. 1n 1ts state of acuve homeostaSIS, tr1mm1ng. adjustmg, and taking up strams, IS malfuncliOmng rt 11 doesn't sqUirm and creak As an adjustable and largely self· regulatmg membrane 11 IS more truly like the sk10 of a hvmg creature than the metaphoncal 'sk1n' of, say, a glass-walled off1ce block."

The blue-sky. blow-up group of Coop H1mmelb(l)au established its name and 1ts work around projects such as Cloud I and Astro-Bal· loon. The Pneumacosm of Hana-Rucker-Co was a means of induc1ng cont1nu1ng, open-ended process mto ex1stmg c1tyscapes through the use of pneumatic dwelling umts 1n vert1cat urban structures Ant Farm 1n Sausalito. Cahfor­ma. the self-proclaimed truck1n'-down-the· highway freaks" of the seventies, compiled the INFlATOCOOKBOOK, a collection of rec1pes for 1nflatoenv1ronments such as Truckm' Umvers1ty. a self-help truckable env1ronment for tummg on friends and faraway people. and EnVJronmmts. offenng several flavors of Inflatable polyethyl· ene structures for gathenng

Antomo Sant'Eha procla1med 10 1914 We no longer believe 10 the monumental, tile heavy and stat1c. and have ennched our seflSlblhUes w1th a taste for 1ghtness trans1ence, and practicality We must mvent and remake the Futunst c1ty like an 1mmense assembly yard dynam1c m every part, the Futunst house l1ke a g1ant machme • Part of the •generation of etectnc1ty," SantElla's draw1ngs of the C1tta Futunsta (1913-15\ and the sketches for Power-Sta!lons (1914) suggest an arch1· lecture of 'diagonal and elliptical lines and a f1rm belief that "architecture such as th1s breeds no permanence, [and] no structural hab1ts · ThiS leads us to Sant'Eha's concluSion

that we shall live longer than our houses, and every generat1on Will have to make 1ts own City"

Throughout the late twent1eth century and 1nto the twenty f~rst, VISionary architects have responded to Sant'Eiia ·s Futunst claims. Paolo Solen began h1s utopian VISIOn 1n the Arizona desert and embarked on h1s JOurney of makmg h1s own City w1th the creat1on of Arcosanli m 1970. Des1gn1ng accord1ng to the concept of arcology (architecture + ecology), Solen stated that Shilling Populations (Will be] the norm m the future· The human spec1es 1s on the move. When Asia and Afnca follow su1t, even at the exclus1on of forcible sh1fts (political, economi­cal, cultural, and rac1al), millions of people w111 expect shelter and serv1ces 1n the most likely

and unlikely places. A prelude to the plunge 1nto space, and Hilton Hotels are not where the answers Will be."

Another v1s1onary, Rem Koolhaas, reshuf­fles our notions of the city and permanence, writ1ng, "The Generic C1ty is always founded by people on the move, po1sed to move on. This explams the msubstanliality of their founda­tions Like the flakes that are suddenly formed m a clear liquid by JOining two chem1cal sub­stances, eventually to accumulate m an uncer­tam heap on the bottom, the collision or conflu­ence of two m1grat1ons-Cuban em1gnis go1ng north and Jew1sh retirees going south, for instance, both ultimately on their way some­place else-establishes, out of the blue, a set­tlement "

In h1s 1995 book V1s1onary Architecture. German author Christian W Thomsen pOinted to the future of Cities in wh1ch buildings with adjustable, skin-like sensors detect motion, weight, and heat; cameras scan like eyes. microphones and speakers hear and talk. and alarms mimic fight-or-flight react1ons. With the structures learnmg all the wh1le by recordmg

th1s mformat1on. Our current culture produces a wide van·

ety of portable, relocatable, and demountable building types rangmg from health-care to educational and commercial facilities T~e portable culture has roving access to blo\· donor and dental check-up stations, Ito ~~s-

f d nd samtary acl mobiles, banks, oo · a tac11i!leS Through mobile deployment of thesed d the mfrastructure IS 11m1t1essly expant ~e 15 not

But portable and mobile archltecedu modlh· · or a con\IOU merely product des1gn .Airstream

C toga or the cation of the ones he fluidity of e~r· Rather illS a recogmtton of t d mographiCS cumstances- the mobility of ei g capac11Y

. d an increas n and information- an fluidity, whether for architecture to respond 10 Iars or through through low-tech, ad hOC vernacu

high-tech kinetics and embedded computa­tion. These dwellings offer an a1ternat1ve and possibly a solution for the Inhabitants of the new "generic" landscape

Douglas Heinganner. Mobl.e Homer," Arrbyte 3. no 6 !Aoru 20011 p 62

Guy Debord. Scetety of llle Spectacle lllelrO<t. Ml Black & Red, 19831. Setlton 42

Roben Kronenburg H. · ouses m Mo11on Tho Genus1s H1s tory •llld Devetopm 1 1 · AI;· en o the Portable Bwldmg (london

" 1"my EdiiiOflS, 1995), P 41 Gilbert Herben Th

ICJmb""" , e Dream of the Facrory·Made House kJ~e MA MITPress, 19841,p 106

le urg lk!uses m MctiOfl, p 60 ~e< L Espnr Nouve

" kJonenbu ~u. No 2, P 211 As quct!ld rg Houses m Met

ham '""""· j{)f), P 63. and Reyner Ban .. ,~ r .!no Des1gn m th Arch,tectur al P e First Mach,ne Age (loodon

P ress. 1960), p. 221 et"r Sultzer. Joan p,

t034 t94418 . . . ouve Complete Works. Volume 2

llolngartner ~~el Bllkllauser, 2000). P 259 · Oblle Homer: P 63

John Bnnc kertloff ..acl<son "The Movable Owel!mg and

How~ Came to America .• Jl OrscvveMg tile~ Land·

scape(New Haven CT Yale tklrrerslty Press 19841 p. 184

Ibid p 60

lb1d. p 95

lb1d p 96

Krooenburg Houses .n MotJOn p ·:

Quot!ld In bod p 67

"The Alchemy of !he /Ill Hoc • The L ?S AngeleS Forum

for Atchltecture ano UrtJan Design May '995

Quoted 1n lleyne Banham. The ~'II Ron Hemin

(london Academy Ed1l100S 1994J, p 45

Fre• Otto. Tensile StruchdesiCarnbndge M'T Press. 1967l.

Marc Oessauce. ed , Tho /nlla/atJ/e Moment PneumatiCS

and Protest m '68 tNew YOlk Pnnceton Arch1"ectural Press

andTheArchllec.turaiLeagooofNewYorl< 19991 PP 21 33

Quoted 10 Reyner Banham Design bY ChoJce (l.ondc

Academy EditionS 19811. p 24

Ibid, p 24-25

Solen. Paolo. ARCOSANTI An LftlJn L2lX!falatY' >an

01eg0 Avant Books 1983) p 26 Rem Koolhaas, "Genenc C 1{." lCIUre lr8llSCfllll $;kkenS

Foundation, Sassenhetm. November 1995 P 11

Chnsllan w Thomsen. V/SIO/l<lfY AtcMocturo From

Babylon to Vtrtuat Reality (Ne.w York PrtJStel Pllbl1shers.

1994), pp. 172-173

' fr-y.n

~lfu ...~ ~~

r

028 JEtllllfER SIEGAL I T:'E AGE Of NEW mr.IAO;M

page 017 Torsten Schmredeknecht, "The Ephemeralrn the

Wot1< of Haus-Rucker-eo.· Architectural Desrgn 68

!Sept/Oct 1998) p 38

page 019 Peter Sulzer. Jean Preuve. Complete Works.

Vol 2 1934-44 (Basel Birkhauser, 2000), p 260

page 020 top Trarler Lrte (November 1967) cover

page 020 bottom. Reyner Banham, Desrgn by Clrorce

(london Academy Edrltons,1981), p 114

page 021 CollectiOn OIIICe of Mobole Desogn

page 023 Reyner Banham, The VtS.oos of Ron Herron

llondoo· Academy EdottOns, 1994). p '6

page 024 Rayner Banham. The ViSJOOS of Ron Herron

llondoo. Academy Edrtrons, 1994). p 43

page 025 top. Sean Chlistopher

page 025 bottom Fret Otto, TeiiSIIe Structures(Cambrtdge

MA MIT Press. 1967), p. 13

page 026 Marc Dessauce, ed • The Inflatable Moment Pneumatrcs and Protest m '68 (New York Pnnceton Archt·

tectural Press and The Archrtectural League of New York.

1999), pp. 9&-9

page 0271ett Jrm Burns, Anmropods New Des1gn Futures

(New York. Praeger Publishers, 1971), p 103

page 027 nght Reyner Banham. Desrgn by Chorce(London

Academy Edrtoons. 1981). p. 27

page 029 Jonathan Sell, Carctutecture (Basel Brrkhauser.

2001), p 33

.. - -·-.~ .......

FESTO 031

032 FESTO AIRTECTURE

The first buildrng rn the world to be constructed with a cub1c intenor (comprised of supportrng structures built With a1r-rnflated chambers) has been unveiled by Festo in the form of an exh1-b1t1on hall. Festo f1rmly believes that the Inno­vative ideas beh1nd lh1s structure, developed rn the PneumatiC Structures Group, (recently established by the Department of Civil eng1-

neering at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) and the new applications for wh1ch 11 can be used are excellent prerequisites for sett1ng new trends in the world of constructiOn

engineering. The ins1de of the hall 1s 6 meters tall w1th

a floor area of 375 square meters and has a total volume of 2,250 cubic meters. The exteri­or d1mens1ons of the hall are a ground area of BOO square meters with a height of 7.2 meters. The structure is relatively light, hav1ng a dead load of 7.5 kg/square meters. The air-inflated chambers of the exhibitiOn hall are made w1th text1le membranes, which can be folded up 1n a 40-foot contarner and transported to different locations quickly and efficiently, thanks to the low overall weight of 6 tons.

The load-bearing structure of the exhibi­tion hall rncludes forty Y-shaped columns and thirty-six wall components along both longJtu­drnal sides. Seventy-two thousand d1stance threads per square meter hold the double layer walls In place· The slits between the opaque wall components are filled with transparent ~ushJons made of Hostaflon ET; these wrndow ectJons can be easily replaced by means of

slide locks The load-beanng structure also features a double-wall fabric flame-lnhlbltrng elastomer c 1 ' oa rngs, and a new translucent eth-ylene-vinyl acetate coatrng

Festo has be 1 th . en exp onng new terntones m e field of aJr-condJbomng.ln additiOn to natural

venlilalion thro h a ug the two doors, conditioned lr IS dJstnbuted Via two textile-supply a1r ducts,

FESTO I AIRTECTURE 0331

suspended from the ceiling. Gravel fill1ng under the gratmg is used as a heat-storage med1um; light gravel from the Rhme river keeps mfrared absorptiOn to a minimum. Radiators in the a1r space between the gratmg and gravel bed ensure that the temperature 1n the hall remains constant during the winter. During the summer, a coolmg system counteracts higher tempera­tures mside the hall.

As Festa mveshgated functionality m the a1r and through a1r, they created a new brand called Alr m Alr • W1thm the A1r m A1r frame­work Festa realized another portable architec­tural idea m the area of pneumatics and thus 1nnovated the classic Inflatable structure Where­as A1rtecture 1s charactenzed by rectangular cross sect1ons and parallel walls. A1rquanum incorporates a sphencal shell that prov1des an even greater amount of mobility

A key feature of the protect IS the water­filled torus that serves as a foundatiOn and also refers to our newly developed membrane mate­nat, wh1ch, supported by a1r, sphencally expands over the foundation nng To our knowledge. there is no other transparent/translucent textile membrane cupola m the world that combmes such a great span w1th an extremely h1gh level of translucency. Desp1te 1ts size-thirty two meters m diameter and e1ght meters m height­the A1rquanum can be stored 1n two 20-foot contamers One contamer holds all of the modu­lar mamtenance un1ts. such as a1r cond1t1omng. ventilation, water exchanger for cooling and healing. emergency generator for Independent power supply for more than forty-e1ght hours of

FESTO I AI AQUARIUM 035

operation, weather station, thermostat control, and Wind-load-dependent a1r-pressure control. The second contamer holds the Vitroflex shell and the membrane foundation torus {of course without the 120-ton water ballast) inClUding the entrance tunnel and a1rlock.

New vis1ons always requ1re new matenals and productiOn processes for the1r realization,

036 FESTO I A/AQUARIUM

but we also place great value on sustainable design. Therefore, we have used a special type of caoutchouc for A1rquanum that has been prov1ded by Bayer; 1t exhibits a umque trans­parency and res1stance to tearing. The Conti­Tech company has produced V1troflex from this material, wh1ch is then manufactured mto ready­to-use structures by Koch Membranes.

038 FESTO I COCOON

Cocoon 1s a small, light-weight, inflatable mini­tent. The tent can be inflated using a standard handpump or a supplied gas cartndge and can be erected quickly and easily by one person. This results in self-explanatory design and usage. The tent can be used not only tor 1e1sure activities such as sport and travel but also in

rescue situations and disaster areas. Similar to an insect's cocoon, the tent's de­

sign reflects new areas of application. Translu­cent a1rbeams allow daylight into the tent If necessary, fluorescent tubes (safety lights) can be used to illuminate the mterior of the tent at mght The outer shell IS made of multilayer sheetmg, which 1S particularly conspicuous due to 1ts color. The sheeting reflects bodY heat back into the tent and, at the same time.

repels low temperatures from the surrounding env1ronment

The tent 1s insulated against low-ground temperatures by its base sheet, wh1ch 1s de­Signed as an inflatable mattress, and is extreme­ly compact to ensure minimum transport vol­ume with purpose-oriented des1gn. Owmg to 1ts well-conceived basic structure and 1ts single­part des1gn, the tent can be manufactured in one Single cycle. This provides ecological and economical benefits thanks to a single-piece production tool and small amount of waste cut­lings from the base materials of the tent.

The product is highly mob1le owmg to 1ts rnlmmum transport volume and we1ght Simple erection takes place in three steps: roll out the tent, inflate the pneumatic structure told up th . b ' . e air earns. A roll of standard adhes1ve tape IS supplied With the tent for repa1rs, makmg maintenance simple and quick.

IS A 1 DO-micrometer thick polyurethane sheet sufficient to give the tent a high degree of

stability Onl th f · Y e base has a more robust abnc-remforced h - • d s eet m order to prevent

Thamage to the tent if erected on rough ground ere are n - · 0 ngld rOds to hold up the tent, as

th1s 1s taken care of by the inflated a~rbeams All m all, the amount of material used in the

Cocoon IS s1gmficantly less than that of conven­tional tents. The matenal1s bonded by thermal impulse weld mg. and no adhes1ves are reqUired. All of the matenals were selected w1th recycla­bllity and durability m mmd for max1mum effi­Ciency w1th m1mmum matenal requirements.

FESTO COCOON 039

040 FESTO I FLUIDIC MUSCLE

The fiUJdtc muscle 1s a hose that consists of alternate layers of elastomer and fibers and can be operated as an actuator w1th com­pressible as well as noncompresstble flUidS.

By building up internal pressure usmg a flu id medtum, the contract1on hose shortens along 1ts longttudtnal ax1s. This shortemng IS directly proportional to the fill volume enabling exact pos1110mng Without servo~ control-electromcs, us1ng only the straightfor­ward membrane regulator for the mternal pressure. We call this "low-tech/low-cost posl­llomng." By winding filaments m different ways, a three-dimensionally expanding hel1cal net 15 formed. This text1le remforcement trans­fers the actual movement and force. As thiS actuator unl1k 1 · ' e c ass1c dnves, has no p1ston or

sealmg nng {that 1s. no movable parts) th1s IS the only dnve that ts stick-slip free. In tradi­tional dnve units there is static fnction between the plunger gasket and the inner wall of the cylinder even when at rest Only from a certain p01nt of force does the so-called "breakaway moment" swttch in, and then there follows the trans1t10n to slid1ng fnct1on. The change from static to sliding fncliOn IS shown m a strong "Jerking" of the drive, particularly at lower oper­ating pressures As FlUidic Muscle does not have this disadvantage, 11 can be operated gen­tly and smoothly from standstill (without pres­sure) to maximum load.

The elastomer serves to seal off the oper­atmg fluid hermetically. The advantages com­pared to the traditional actuator are, among others, an imtial force of up to ten t1mes at the same nommal diameter. a fract1on of 1ts own wetght, absolutely no sttck-slip effect, and very s1mple pos1tionmg. The enormous agility of the FlUidiC Muscle 1s shown 1n 1ts supenor behav­IOr 1n acceleration and deceleratton. The Sim­plicity of the product allows the actuator to be cut w1th a normal pa1r of sc1ssors when reqUired and fixed m cone clamps, ready to

operate. There are no mov1ng parts, and the membrane contractiOn system cons1sts of only three different components Each part can be exchanged or reconfigured by the user. Unlike other actuators, FlUidic Muscle needs no lubn­

cants or coolants

FESTO FLUIDIC MUSCLE 041

I

Ntnety-two years after the first Gordon Bennett Coup Aeronaullque. Festo unveiled a revolution m balloon racmg: the world's f1rst mflatable basket. Unlike tradrt10nal WICker baskets. whtch have rema1ned unchanged for nearly two hun­dred years. the mnovat1ve pneumatic construe­bon of th1s new basket represents a major advance 1n gas-balloon technology Cho1ce mate­nals, novel ballast dtstnbutlon, and mtegrated discharge paths for stat1c electnc1ty are the dtstmct advantages of the new Festo basket.

Pneumatic modules made of coated Contt­Tech ftbers and Inflated with compressed a1r make up the basket's supporttng frame and provtde clear advantages 1n terms of wetght. A two-ply membrane covering the spaces be­tween framework components allows pilots to carry up to 600 liters of water wtlhtn the s1des of the basket, thus ehmtnatmg much of the need to use sand bags for ballast For safety reasons. ballast water 1s dtstnbuted among several chambers and can be dramed either as needed or enttrely,m the event of an emergency

Gas balloons reqUire mcreased safety pre­caUtions. espec1ally when 11 comes to the neces­Sity to discharge slattc electriCity for th1s reason

Festo has mtegrated a network of conduct1ve matenal into the basket's protect1ve extenor. Achievmg the necessary conductivity in WICk­er baskets has tradillonally meant weavmg copper w1nng into the basket's structure. The conductivity of Festa's new basket matenal. however, along with its support cables. whtch connect to the exterior support rack at points beneath the basket floor, provide ten times the mm1mum specific resistance required for gas­balloon baskets by the German Civil Aviatton Authority.

Gas-balloon races cover large distances and take place over the course of several days. For this reason Festo has eqUipped tiS basket w1th a solar sail and ram gear, plus a butlt-m berth so that pilots have a chance to rest The basket also comes w1th the means of fastemng down all eqUipment securely, mcluding oxygen

. nts even cylinders and electromc mstrume · dunng the roughest landmgs. The Inflatable bas­ket's excellent floatation properttes also elt~l· nate the need for the life rafts that would tra ,_ tionally be used in emergency water landmgs

FES10 BAIJ.OONING 043.-L~-----'

I

L I

046 LOT/EK I MIXER/MEDIA COCOON

Mixer transforms a steel cement -mixer into a twenty-first-century med1a cocoon swtable for loungmg, viewmg, and dreaming. F1tted w1th twelve-inch monitors connected to a variety of audiOVIsual inputs (surveillance cameras satellite TV, DVD player, PlayStatlon 2), Mlxe; offers a plush, intimate environment animated by multiple forms of mformatlon and media. As

M1xer p1vots on its central axis, Surveillance Camera #1 surveys the room m which the Mixer is located. Cables, coming out of the upper slip-ring, reach the roof of the building to connect to Satellite TV and to Surveillance Camera #2. City landscapes are transmitted to the monitors inside the M1xer together w1th the infinite channel selection of Satellite TV Play· Stat1on 2 brings virtual reality games, movies. and fast Internet connection into this capsule. Resting on extrasoft blue foam, users can cre­ate multiple visual configurations on twelve screens through a central router for a media overload. Mixer offers, in the sp1rit of a DJ mix­Ing booth, a space for one or more people to select, sample, and mix sound and imagery to

suit individual fantasies.

The Retlnev1table pro1ec!lon room IS defmed by stretchmg while spandex floor to ce11ing V1sual programs are rear-pro,ected onto the dynamic illummated walls employmg large m1rrors to double the image s1ze Red nav1ga­t1on lights d1rect people to the entrance. where four slits allow entry to the core. Once 1ns1de, video art and short f1lms engulf the v1ewers m a 360-degree expenence. Blue vmyl-coated pool lounge cha1rs are mounted d1rectly on the floor on a turntable mechan1sm to allow vieW­ers to spin around. Each cha1r IS equipped w1th mfrared remote headsets that control sound and program selecllon Retlnevltable1.5mves­tlgates the expenence of v1ew1ng cmema per se, explonng the phys1cal aspect of total absorp­tion 1n a cmematographiC space.

LOTIEK RET.INEVITABLE 1 5 047

LOTIEK I MOU OWEU.ING UN tMOBtLE 11) 049

One sh1ppmg container is transformed into a Mobile Dwelling Unit. Cuts in the metal walls of the container generate extruded subvolumes, each encapsulating a single live, work, or stor­age function. When traveling, these subvol­umes are pushed in, fillmg the entire conta1ner, mterlocking with each other, and leaving the outer skin of the container flush to allow world­wide standardized shipping. When 1n use, all subvolumes are pushed out, leaving the inten­or of the container completely unobstructed with all functions accessible along 1ts sides. The interior of the container and the subvol­umes- mcluding all fixtures and furnishings­are fabricated entirely out of fiberglass. A central computer regulates airtlow and tern-

perature as well as lighting, and is connected w1th all communication networks, momtors, and speakers/microphones throughout the umt. MDUs are conce1ved for indiVIduals movmg around the globe.

The MDU travels With its dweller to the next long-term destination, fitted with all live/work eqUipment and filled w1th the dweller's belong­mgs Once it reaches its destination, the MDU IS loaded mto MDU vertical harbors located m all ma1or metropolitan areas around the globe. The harbor 1s a multiple-level steel rack, meas­uring 8 feet in width (the width of one contam­er) and varying in length according to the site. Its stretched linear development is generated by the repetition of MDUs and vertical distnbu­tlon corridors. Elevators, sta1rs, and all systems (power, data, water, sewage) run vertically along these corndors. A crane slides parallel to the bUIIdmg, along the ent1re length, on 1ts own tracks. 11 picks up MDUs as they are dnven to the Site and loads them onto slots along the rack. Steel brackets support and secure MDUs In the1r ass1g d PI ne pos1t1on, where they are ca~~ged-m to connect to all systems. The vertl-

arbor ISm constant transformation as MD Us

are loaded and unloaded from the penmanent rack Like p1xels in a d1g1tal1mage, temporary patterns are generated by the presence or ab­sence of MDUs m different locations along the rack, reflectmg the ever-chang1ng composition of these colomes scattered around the globe.

LOT/EK 1 MOU (MOBILE DWELLING UNil) 051

m MI'POlD 053

054 FTL HAPPOLO I CARLOS MOSELEY MUSIC PAVILION

The Carlos Moseley Music Pavilion 1s a state-of­the-art performance facility designed for the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmon­ic, and the City of New York's Departments of Cultural Affairs and Parks and Recreation for audiences of up to one hundred thousand people.

Completely mobile, six custom semitrail­ers carry the entire facility to any open per­formance site. Designed to be set up in three hours with mmimal impact on fragile park locat10ns, this travelmg music pavilion has no precedent. The pavilion's pyramidal open-truss structure incorporates a translucent fabnc shell, 40-by-78-foot foldmg stage, computer­ized lighting system, video projection screen, and a distributed sound system employing twenty-four w1reless remote speaker towers.

Originally we worked on a series of schemes using a pyramid-frame structure consist1ng of tour hydraulic cranes that docked m space. No manufacturer would allow standard cranes, so instead we used three 86-foot-long custom truss masts. We came up with an underlaid

·1 nd a dou-apparatus on the front two tra1 ers a . ·1 From thiS ble-back dev1ce on the rear tral er.

arrangement the design took shape. SIX semi-' . 1 ucks trans-trailers plus three dressmg-room r

port the complete facility from park to park. These trailers hold all equipment necessary tdor

. . lion inclu -sett1ng up and dismantling the pavl • d · devices an mg forklifts hydraulic opemng ' t ly

' omple e winches The vehicles have been c 1 · . and mee

rebuilt to carry concrete foundatiOns the • 1 t. ns In tact, all interstate highway regu a 10 ·

allowable we1ght of the trailers tor highway travel ultimately determined the exact surface area of the overhead tensile fabric shell.

The basic design approach called tor the fabric membrane to take its shape from the reflective acoustic reqwements and the need to provide cover for the stage. The architectural poetry was found in the proportions and the relations 1 th

. 0 ese elements to one another. The

ProJect then b . ecame a m1xture of des1gn engi-

neenng a d . ' ' n mechan1cs, thereby ra1sing the

Question· Wh · Wh · en IS a structure a machme and

en IS 1t a building?

056 FTL HAPPOLD AT&T GLOBAL OLYMPIC VILLAGE

The Olymptc Cente was the AT&T Gl nnral Park's major facrhty mrlhon, 9 ooo obal Olymprc Vrllage, a S30

• -square 1 tng three reloc Ia - oot complex compns-tncorporated twa ble bulldrngs The vrllage latn Walls. ret o-story, relocatable glass cur-a ocatable tnt

second-story b . error elevators. and debuted at lh ndge between burldrngs It

e 1996 s ummer Olympics rn

Atlanta and was desrgned to travel to future Olymprc venues Nagano 10 1998. Sydney 10 2000. and Salt Lake City in 2002. The struc­ture ·s fabnc was desrgned to be an entertaiO­ment effect 10 rtself. allow10g images from live Olymprc events and live concerts to be pro­jected 200 feet wrde onto the outstde of the building.

The vrllage paVIflons are demountable bu!ld­rngs that come dose to the flmrt of feaSibltty. Two grant arched pavilrons-the Med13 PavrJOO and the Athletes PaYihoo--aeated an exedral focus to Centenmal Parle These were destgned wrth s1eel truss arches. a PVC polyester membrane glass and metal curtaill walls. custom holograph­

IC walls. tntegrated hghbng. and spec1al !umrture

FTUIAPPOLO AT&T GLOBAL OLYMPIC VILLAGE 057 I

,

058 FTL HAPPOLO I AT&T GLOBAL OLYMPIC VILLAGE

The form of these pavilions 1s based on a senes of Gothic truss arches that create a cathedral-like climax at a central performance stage. The fabric along the trusses 1s transpa: and creates a clerestory colored w1th over 2. theatrical lights. A bit-mapped v1deo system

usw1th· allows projection on the curved arch wa out distortion, creating a bwld1ng as media ,con

Th1s project required a central facility to show­case approximately sixty fashion shows dunng a seven-day New York "market week," wh1ch occurs every spnng and fall, formerly held at des1gners' showrooms. The new central loca­tion would save time and help focus the ener­gy and attention of the fashion buyers and the International news media that cover these high-profile events.

To meet these needs, FTL Happold de­Signed a "tented fashion village" located in the newly restored Bryant Park adjacent to the New York Public library The complex consists of two large tented theaters, backstage tents covered walkways, and a temporary infrastr~cture of Power heating . . . 1

' • a1r-cond1t1omng and toilets nslde the Village th , .

' e Josephine Pavilion accom-

modates 794 people and the Gertrude Pavilion accommodates 1.073 FTL Happold also de­signed the proscemum arches and runway "softlight, the fabnc beacon tower at the comer of Rlrty-second Street and Sixth Avenue, as well as some stage sets. mclud1ng several for Donna Karan. Set -up t1me for the entire com­plex reqUires less than six days.

The T1me tor Peace Pavilion IS a mobile archi­tectural pavilion designed to travel throughout the world. Conce1ved by artists Robert and Manon Embeck, th1s sculptural and stream­lined project is aimed to raise the public con­SCIOusness of the possibilities of peace.

The T1me for Peace Pavilion is a butldmg on Wheels that moves from site to s1te, carry­Ing 1ts own structure, enclosure, floors, 1nten­ors and Infrastructure. Th1s mob11ity gives the PaVIlion the flex1b11ity to adapt to multiple uses at IndiVIdUal Sites

The 1ntenor of the pavilion is divided mto hve Spaces dedicated to Information, educa­tion, commumcatlon, and art. The centerpiece and largest of the hve chambers the Chamber Of R . '

ef\ect1on, conta1ns an enormous art mstal-

the entire space mto a latlon transforming th Information Cham-

men\ In e pa1nted enwon a didactiC voyage ber the VISitor IS taken onfl ct In the Commu­

tryofconl through the his o t s Immersed In an

b the VISI Or I mcatlon Cham er In the Special

d a expenence. Interactive me I acttvttleS such as con-

ber dtverse Event Cham rf mances are held certs, plays, and pe or

r

~----------------------------------------------_j

To demonstrate the possibilities of a networked dwelling, we proposed a commumty of digitally and physically networked spaces known as the e-HIVE for a 22-acre s1te in the 1ndustnal port area of Oakland, California. Located imme­diately adjacent to the West Oakland BART (Bay Area Rapid Trans1t) station and JUSt north of the Port of Oakland's Southern Pac1f1c Railway lntermodal Yard, lh1s particular s1te 1s charac­terized by empty expanses of asphalt and cham-link fence spread beneath the elevated portion of Oakland's 1·880 freeway and punctu­ated occasionally by low, preengmeered ware­house structures

In order to maxim1ze the flexibility of the e-HIVE system, 1ts spatiality 1s redefmed m terms of single IndiViduals. The pnmary spatial

014 DOUG JACKSON/lARGE I THE e-HIVE

--

. therefore. are components of thiS system, . . I ndiVid· standardized and largely selt-sufliclen 1

ual dwelling units. . d1splaY Outfitted With autostereoscopiC . IY of

d te the maJon screens-which accommo a d recre· the occupants' needs tor aesthetiC a;necliVIIY. ational desires v1a telepresente~~rtainment remote views, and mteract,ve

066 DOUG JACKSON/LARGE I THE e·HIVE

(the "software")-the md1v1dual dwelling umts themselves are free to rema1n neutral and unadorned (the "hardware"). Based on a mod· lf1ed 20-foot ISO shippmg contamer, the umt can accept various standardized "plug-m" fix· lure modules to accommodate storage or hyg1ene needs. A transverse slldmg partition w1thm the umt allows the occupant to create a phys1ca1 separation between mediated and unmedialed spaces, or between two different types of mediated spaces, as chosen. When dayhghlls deSired dunng hours when it is not naturally available, daylight-temperature light fixtures mounted to the exterior collector can supply it. Thus, the individual unit is not shack· led by the real time Within Which it is located but rather ca ' n accommodate the idiosyncratic schedule of Its occupant.

Although telepresence Will allow for a Wide range of soc1at d th an spalial mteractlvlty and

ese types of d . , matel me lated actlvilles may ulll· lace {o cfome to largely supplant some of the

· · ace acliv1t1es they Will hkel engaged m at present, adequate y never be umversally seen as an Marvin Mm:k desirable substitute. (Comed by

YIn 1980, the term "telepresence"

refers to the use of any type of med1ated com· mumcallon technology w1th suff1c1ent band· width to 1mpart the sense among 1ts users of bemg m the same env1ronment w11h each other.) Wh1le thiS proposal antiCipates a near· future when telepresence will be suffiCiently facile to dnve a reconceptuahzat1on of arch1· tectural space, it 1s not the only mechamsm

.... ..., ....... ()llf1'"*WV/IIOIJI'• ......... }'~ p.~ - ~,...,...

__ .,.._

----

DOUG JACKSON/LARGE I TME e·MIVE 067

.. : ... =.

-- J '*'9.-;&b'JtiDMt",..,..

u~tu GLV-«WCIIIOIIa.il> .,.__,_ --------~\ ·~

of connecttvtty provtded for by thts system Rather than set such connecttvrty as the rule. however thts system proposes to allow 11 10 b~ established on an ad hoc basis between netgh­bonng umts.

The e-HIVE ts therefore compnsed of a modular system of outdoor covered space tnto whtch the tndtvtdual container umts can be

068 DOUG JACKSON/LARGE 1 THE e·HIVE

-------c )~ II

I ---"'-.. ~ .... d::lttgoprwttOW

v, pluglrtl»>1~

docked, as well as plug-In accessory units for kitchen, dinmg, conjugal acttvtty, public enter­tatnment. utility functions, and the like Flexible Silicon rubber parttbons suspended from a two­degree-of-freedom carnage system, In conJunc­tion with retractable translucent perimeter screens, allow for enclosed space to be creat­ed as desired, either mtenor or extenor, and

etther annexed to a single umt or con)otmng multtple umts. When a flextble partttion is fold­ed back on tlself against a deployed penmeter screen, an enclosed outdoor storage space IS created. Mobile furniture can be stowed wtthtn this enclosure when not needed and deployed when the flextble enclosure IS opened up to make an inhabitable space .

This system assumes that these congrega­tional spaces will be used on an event-spectfic basis. The architectural strategies appropnate to permanent space have therefore been trad­ed away in favor of flexibility, and the system's surfaces rematn relatively mute and purpose· driven. ThiS aspect of the system derives tis architectural mterest directly from tis variabtli· ty: from its ability to weave together tntenor and exterior and to extend and connect the

' . . f tndtvtdual dwelling umts wtth a new type

0

space based upon a nonrect1linear formalism that anses dtrectly from tis need to be fleXIble. Furthermore, by enlistmg the occupant as an agent of the physical networking of tndtvtdual spaces, the e-HIVE gtves, by analogy, palpabl~ expresston to the dlgttal connectiVIty that

1

also prov1des

DOUG JACKSON/LARGE I THEe-HIVE 069

This project fosters direct mterachon between an architectural-scale mstallat1on and pedes­trian achv1ty on the street. The 160-foot-long band of respons1ve "Whiskers" that Will wrap around a building m New York allows pedestn­ans to walk up to and mteract w1th the mstalla­tlon. The bars move in wavelike rhythm dnven by sensors, mounted beneath each row, that

MICHAEL A. FOX/KOG I 072 INTERACTIVE KINETIC FACAOE

L----' I

ng person. If momtor the presence of a movl motion is detected the poles gradually pomt

' . . th ough the toward the target creating a npple r ' . · le fashiOn field. Each element moves m a SimP

tt ns evolve but together more complex pa er . -d 1 interac-The project at once engages 1ndJVI ua

r ly m1rrors tJVIty and at the same hme ac 1ve . ty as a whole. unengaged pedestnan act1v1

MICHAEL A FOX/KOG I

BOEING BUSINESS JET INTERIOR 073

The motivation for th1s proJect was to create mterior des1gn solut1ons that are flexible and adaptive and, at instances, respons1ve and Intel­ligently active w1th respect to chang1ng Individ­ual, social, and climatic contexts. Accordingly, the goal was to prov1de a responsive mterior space that can be configured as prescribed by the users pnor to a specific flight as well as partially reconfigured In-flight. Such adaptability a1ms to meet the changmg needs of the users and the1r acllvlt1esfenv1ronment for comfort and opt1mum spatial eft1c1ency The des1gn proposal mtroduces to the mtenor three bas1c kmet1c components. sectors (wh1ch display variable location) mobility, and transformabill­ty (vanable geometry). The sectors can techm­cally operate mdependently, as a complete

MICHAEL A.. FOlUKOG I 074 BOEING BUSINESS JET INTERIOR

f zones of the system, they divide and de lne . d With · Each 1s eqUippe program in the mtenor. d the

h techmcal an or otherw1se provides 1 e tor var· physical/spatial apparatuses necessary ious parts of the program.

E1ght automated doors, four on each floor, oper­ate m a choreographed sequence for an auto­mobile lift Servo-controlled cylinders direct the mot1on Without the use of rails or cables. An automobile co11ect1on is housed and displayed '" the building With the elevator connecting several floors and serving as the central p1ece d1V1d1ng the I spaces. Alummum framing stain-ess steel cyr d . ' 10 ers, and a stamless steel mesh wau comb1n t

e 0 make th1s composed mecha­nism The d 1n · oars can be programmed to open

a number at chan ways to create dynam1c and

~109 entry sequences for the client.

lth Roart Inc., New York.

The Responsive Skylights IS a networked sys­tem of Individually respons1ve skylights that funcllon together to opt1m1ze thermal and day­lightmg cond1t1ons. The unique aspect of the Respons1ve Skylights lies m kmellc funct1on, human mteract1on, and adapt1ve control (the system 1s capable of learnmg daily usage pat­tern) under realistic operatmg conditions. Pri­mary des1gn considerations are to utilize natu­ral daylight m the space where and when 1t 1s desired and to take opt1mal advantage of natu­ral venblat1on. The prOJect builds upon ex1sbng sustamable strateg1es rather than defm1ng a new defm1t1ve approach The concept demon­strates a way of mcreasing the resource effi­Ciency of a bu1ld1ng's operation by mtegrallng high-level technologies mto the phys1ca1 built

076 MICHAEL A FOX/KOG I RESPONSIVE SKYLIGHTS

form to control the kinetic function. The approach addresses 1ssues of energy effic1ency and ways m wh1ch the enwonmental quality of buildings can be technologically enhanced to be more efficient and affordable, and able to reach a broader audience of users.

I PONSIVE SKYLIGHTS 077

MICHAEL A. FOXIKOG I RES

l THE MARK FISHER STIJOIO 079

THE MARK FISHER STUDIO 080 ROlLING STONES' STEEL WHEELS

The brief history of touring rock-and-roll shows outdoors began in the mid 1950s, when Colonel Parker booked Elvis Presley on a tour of u.s baseball parks. The stages were bwlt locally. consisting of rough-and-ready platforms Wlth no weather covering and a rudimentary publiC­address system. They relied on the park facJh­!Jes for lighting. This simple approach changed little during the next ten years. When the Beat­les pertormed in New York's Shea Stadium 10

1965, they played on a low platform set up on the pitcher's mound, with lightmg prov1ded by the stadium, and with the mus1c relayed most­ly through the stadium's PA system.

By 1970, the basic box-two scaffolding PA towers with a custom-built stage roof suspend­ed between them-had become the established

form for the touring rock show. Applied decora­bOn mJght camouflage the Silhouette to a limited extent But from a distance, all shows looked the same A few bands (notably Pink Floyd in 1977 \Ito toured With a roof of retractable umbrella~ desii11ed by Buro Happold) expenmented with other roof shapes, but the possibilities for mven-bOn were always t cons rained by cost, because most bands d1d n t 1

o want to end up owmng a arge outdoor root at the end of a tour

~1~9th R · . ate a show th:t oiling Stones decided to ere-that the looked qUJte unlike anything

y, or anyone els h The Steel "'h e, ad toured before

'" eels sta d . . · Proscen1um-b f ge es1gn rejected the

ox ormat of explored a outdoor shows and more narrar

architecture of th Jve approach to the archJiectural e structure. The underlying sta organJzatJon I

9e-the tech 0 a rock concert hghtJng, and w nJcal reqwements of sound latJon Prog eather Protection and the . , enc rarn of backsta , wcu-

f-could not be h ge, stage, and audJ-fllum bo c anged B that x Was reduced t . ut the prosce-

Were reorgamzed . o a catalog of elements The mto an

flank Jlerforrnance a expressive form. ed on each Side b rea of the stage was

Y towers of scaffolding

over e1ghty feet h1gh, erected by crews of up to one hundred men at a t1me. The top levels of the towers supported alummum "pulley beams·­lightweight cantilever beams contaimng chain­pulleys that lilted the asymmetnc decoration of orange g1rders, the ligh!Jng modules. and the thirty-foot-long cantilever tubes supporting the follow-spots into place on the facade of the structure The bases of the scaffoldmg towers extended outward m a cascade of balcomes, terraces, and sta1rs These prov1ded decoration at the sides of the stage and allowed the band to perform across the whole width of a stad1um

on different levels. A low roof stood between the towers. The

roof was visually separated from them, and it cantilevered forwards over the performance

area to g1ve effiCient weather protection to the band. This reversal of the conventional form was the most recogmzable statement of the des1gn. It located the band on the dynam1c central axis of a composibon, rather than con­cealing them mside a negative space

The sprawling compositiOn of the Steel Wheels stage looked like a derelict steel m1ll It

seemed to be the antJthesJs of portability-an alien rum abandoned in the tnumphant sport­Ing environment of a stad1um.lts desolate form was a comment on the future of heavy mdus­try, 1ts seemmg permanence an 1romc com­ment on the nature of temporary architecture. It remams the largest stage ever taken on a

world tour.

In 1994 Mark Fisher continued h1s experiments w1th rearrangmg propnetary staging com­ponents, des1gmng a 120-foot-wide arch for P1nk Floyd's DIVisiOn Bell tour. The polygonal form of the arch was assembled from straight­mast trusses, cross-braced with stra1ght -roof trusses The arch was built flat on a substage and lifted mto place by two cranes to form a

senes of unfoldmg sect1ons. The upstage side of the arch was filled w1th a curved proJeCtion surface formed usmg high-pressure Inflatable tubes, wh1le hghtmg and a 40-foot-dlameter cmepro]eclion screen were rigged ins1de. The band performed on a performance stage w1th 1ts own cantilever roof set ins1de the main arch.

The use of propnetary stagmg components

reduced the capital cost of the project It allowed three 1denbcal mam arches to be prepared for the tour w1thout the band having to bear the cost of building the structural components. The band paid for the construcbon of the s1ngle perfonm­ance stage and the many spec1al effects, all of wh1ch were installed 10S1de the arch dunng the twenty-four hours before the show

In 1992 Mark Fisher and U2 show director Willie Williams created U2's Zoo TV stadium tour, a produchon that explOited v1deo pro)ec· lion technology on a mass1ve scale to present an enterta1nmg cnhque of mass med1a dnven SOCiety In t 996 they started work on the Pop mart stage for U2. The des1gn eclipsed the hyperbole of Zoo TV by presenhng a parody of

1ts excesses, based around the largest v1deo screen that had ever been bUilt m the world at the lime (1996).

The g1ant Video screen (one hundred and fifty feet by Iitty feel) employed the newly emergmg LED technology. The first LED v1deo screens, wh1ch were assembled from mdrv1d· ual red, green, and blue LEOs that were clus· tered mto pixels approximately one mch in diameter, became commercially available '" late 1995. For the U2 pro;ect, Fisher took the IndiVidual pixels and spaced them further apart on an open lattice grid. The pixels were mount ed three Inches apart on hinged panels formed

I bes Each from rows of folded aluminum u · panel was approximately elgllt feet by SIX teet. the panels were lmked by setHockJng 111nges

t 5 of VIdeO Into cha1ns that formed vert1cal 5 np tructure tor screen f1fty feet tall The pnmary 5

001 the video screen was bUilt from StageCo r .

Th tandard campo trusses and roof masts e 5 ork en framew nents were assembled mto an op h the

f om w111c w1th a header truss at the top r The wal

ld be lilted. '' stnps of v1deo screen cou tended b es that ex

was stabilized by knee rae rovJded suP· upstage behmd the screen and P

THE MAHK FISHERS IUOIO U2S PtJPMARr 085 1

port for a monopitch fabnc roof, which covered the technical and ma1ntenance areas. The knee braces and the mam masts of the stage were anchored to the ground by f1ve-ton water tanks at their bases.

Each mdiv1dua1 cham of VIdeo panels was lifted by a hoist from a header truss at the top of the screen, slidmg mto tracks formed from heavyweight alummum extrusions normally used for wall cladding m StageCo stage roofs. The tracks aligned the panels and connected them to the pnmary structure that braced them agamst wind loads. The panels were stored horizontally on pallets that could be moved by forklift and rolled stra1ght mto a truck. The chams of panels folded like pages onto the pal­lets. alternately face-to-face and back-to-back.

086 THE MARK FISHER STUDIO I U2'S POPMART

Th1s arrangement allowed the video screen elements to be assembled very qu1ckly with a small number of people.

The bright yellow Popmart arch was built around a load-beanng armature of roof masts, which also supported the central aud1o cluster. The plast1c honeycomb compos1te panels were attached to the masts by custom-designed

. f s The rollers rollers mounted on their back ace .

ran on heavy-duty curtain tracks th~tb;~;: attached to the masts at ground leve the

The rollers on they were erected by crane. I to be backs of the panels allowed the panes I and

t ground leve attached to the tracks a . ost of b e avo1d1ng m hoisted into place from a ov ' d . the Rollmg

the safety problems encountere In laddmg tor Stones' Voodoo Lounge set. Th~hcthe assem· the arch proceeded in parallel WI Jess than bly of the Video screen, both takmg three hours to complete

The Rolling Stones' 1997 Bndges to Babylon stage created a huge proscenium theatre at the end of the stadium, with tall theatrical cur­tams. ornamental columns, and other architec­tural elements. The pnmary structure was built from propnetary StageCo components, which supported the huge Sony Jumbotron v1deo screen, the curtain tracks, the PA, and the back

wall. The considerable mass of the stage struc· lure was also used to counterweight the 150-foot-long telescoping cantilever bndge, which stretched out across the stadium to reach a : stage in the middle of the audience The ban paid for the construction of the custom-built

d h·lred the services of the stagmg scenery an ed rt company to erect the steelwork that support .

Over the past th1rty years. self-deploymg mechamcaJ stage systems have been shown to save on manpower and to reduce construction time But these systems are much smaller and Jess flexible than the modular systems used for the large stages illustrated here. On large proJ­ects, the econom1c advantage s!ill lies w1th highly Skilled crews assembling Simple. low-

tech {although eff1c1ent1y engmeered) compo­nents. This approach has allowed large mven­tones of equipment to be built up m depots around the world for relatively low costs, mak­mg 1t possible for the stagmg companies to meet the demandmg lOgistical timetables of major world tours

The Popmart and Bndges to Babylon stages marked the climax of a developing sequence of tounng productions. wh1ch had begun w1th the expenmental efforts of hippy entrepreneurs some th1rty years before The stages were trav­elmg advertisements for the bands that per­formed on them, portable temples to the brand values of the1r rock-star patrons. The opportu­nity to bUild the stages was founded on the eco­nomic power of the bands, wh1ch had achieved

such brand penetration of the markets m which they operated that they could guarantee to sell out stadiums anywhere m the world. They were also bands whose VISion encompassed every­thing relating to their performance, so that they could understand the value of creating stage des1gns that explored their art1shc 1deas In an architectural way. The twenty-f1rst century has Witnessed major changes m the busmess that delivers popular mus1c to the masses. and It IS unlikely that such 1d1osyncrat1c conjunctiOns of art1st1c VISion and commerc1al power Will be seen m tounng rock shows m the foreseeable future.

l

092 PUGH + SCARPA I REACTOR FILMS

The program for office and work space for Reactor F1lms was strategically divided into distinct areas that could be developed and deta1led m phase With the construction sched­ule. Each programmatiC element or area was explored m depth and developed m detail, pre­sented to the client, and then dimensioned and ISSued to the contractor for construction. Des1gn

decisions were made m close associatiOn with the contractor and various fabricators whose expertise was fundamental to the project. A complex set of issues and relationshiPS Involv­Ing time, money, design, construction, and lab· rication created a context in which the process of making and the craft of constructiOn mtensi· f1ed in importance and became central aspects of the process. Construction commenced dur· ing the first week of des1gn and perm1ts were issued by the city by the beginning of the sec­ond week. All drawings generated for the pro)· eel served as both client presentation and con· struction document. To facilitate thiS process and allow for rapid facsimile communication between participants, all drawings were com· pleted freehand on 11-foot-by-17 -inch vellum. The immediacy of working in this "one-take" or "live broadcast" context resulted in an arch!· lecture that, in essence, evolved as a drawing at

full scale. . d a Spatially, the proJect revolves aroun

poSIIIOned centrally located conference room. d to engage the public street This room. locate

· used ocean· m the street lobby, reoccup1es a L ng shipping container purchased from the

0

iP

Beach sh1ppmg yard. The econom1c climate at the t1me of lh1s project permitted the mventive reuse of th1s ready-made object: because of the trade Imbalance With Japan, the used contain­er was available at an extremely low cost. Uke the 1930s building that this project occup1es, the recycled conta1ner IS transformed and per­ceptually repos1t1oned to capitalize on its mher­ent history. In essence, 11 exhibits a spatial biog­raphy, 1ts surfaces and vo1ds charged with fragments of memory etched 1nto it over time.

The surroundmg mtenor space was con­ceived as a fluid surface wrapper rotating asymmetncally around the center of the con­tainer Th1s surface wrapper alternately pushes close to and peels away from the walls and structure of the ex1St1ng building, suggesting a

-------------------

094 PUGH + SCARPA REACTOR FILMS "'' r

'

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dynamic relationship between the old and new-a design attitude that respects the mtegnty of the former while ma1ntainmg a com­mitment to the generation of the mvent1ve and thoughtful latter. Ultimately, Reactor IS an attempt to stimulate meaningful experience in architecture through the process of makmg, questions of "how" rather than "what."

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t

t ... ~-•~.1 rl-1 .. '-• t.t- q.1..-Cq

/),J. '

....J

8•

~r ~ rate headquarters for Davie­

The new corpo t a full-service enter­Brown Entertammen -th expertise In

t company WI talnment marke In~ ntertalnment promobons. four pnmary areas! e celebnty relations. and product place men , Miles the clients request strategic all~<~nces-sa t re enwonment In to create a Singular Signa u ny function under which all facets of the compa

PUGH+ NTERTAJNMENT 095

SCARPA I DAVIE-BROWN E

one roof. (Formerly, the company occupied two separate off1ce spaces, m1les apart).

Th1s project called for the renovation of ten thousand square feet 1n an existing indus­trial warehouse building m West Los Angeles. The design needed to accommodate a twenty­seven hundred square foot prop center, execu­tive offices, staff and client off1ces, a confer­ence room, product display, and a dressmg room. The project was realized Within extreme­ly light budgetary and t1me constramts Occu­pation of the space took place only Sixteen weeks after commencement of design.

The mam off1ce zone of Dav1e-Brown was dnven by the desire to maintain a maximum amount of open space at the center of the building. This main space acts as a kind of

096 PUGH + SCARPA I DAVIE-BROWN ENTERTAINMENT

piazza around which all actiVIties unfold. Visu­al corridors from one end of the space to the other are left unobstructed. A 20-foot-long, brilliant blue kitchen/cafe island s1ts astride one s1de of the space, while feature elements­a 12-foot-high hourglass-shaped, metal-clad conference room and a 14-foot-hlgh shrink­wrapped twisting and torqUing steel-frame dressing room-act as sculptural objects in an otherwise open field.

Enclosed executive offices, sem1enclosed staff offices, and open-landscape workstations are strategically positioned around the perimeter of the building. The primary executive offices occupy a band of previously existing offices along the front elevation. Framing remained, dropped acoustical ceilings were removed, and the offices were resurfaced with two layers of palm-sanded Plexiglas. This achieved an economy of means without a loss of effect. Light from the perimeter wmdows broadcasts deep mto the heart of the space via the translucent wall material.

Overall, a restramed use of materials­Plexiglas, fiberglass, steel, gypsum board, and pamt-created Dav1e-Brown Entertamment's

new headquarters. The design evolved w1th a desire to create a rich environment that would respond to the client's needs while also allow­ing the content of their work to animate the space as an integral aspect of the design.

ACCONCI STUOIO 099

100 ACCOtlCI STUDIO I MOBILE LINEAR CITY

W~en the truck 1s parked, a line of housing umts can be pulled out of the trailer. Each unit slides on a track attached to the walls of the next larger unit, sliding out far enough so that its support legs can be folded down and fixed to the ground. The truck is driven forward so that the unit is released.

The houses are sheathed m corrugated steel; the sheathing IS cut in sections, and hmges have been added so that the sections can be folded down. A gangplank folds down outside, leaving an open doorway; from under the gangplank, a ladder folds down onto the ground, allowmg access to the house.

Each umt IS walled off from the next· in each, the end wallis e1ther m~rrored (reflec;mg '15 own interior, and stay1ng enclosed within

itseln or translucent (giving a shadowy view into the next unit, which has a shadowy v1ew into the next unit). Inside each house. wall panels pivot down to make a table, a bench. a

bed, a shelf. The last unit, the smallest, functions as a

t of hOUS· service unit for the ent1re communi Y .

. d 10 prov1de a es. Inside, wall panels hmge own

stove, a refngerator. and a toilet Other panels fold 1n vertically, making stalls around the show­er and the toilet The end wall folds down to make a back porch, a ladder folds do11m from the wall to prov1de access to the serv1ces of the crty.

The floors of each un1t are steel grabng; underneath, a fluorescent light at the back of each house casts light from below, across the floor. The c1ty 1s public; people can walk under­neath each unrt and look up 1nto 11-unless the mhabllant mtervenes and lays a rug down on the floor. The more you use the serv1ce un1t, the less pnvate 11 becomes; you can fold down a wall, for example, and use the toilet it provides, but now your ass is exposed to the world outside.

Des1gned by Vito Acconc1 with Lws Vera and Jenny Schnder.

102 ACCONCI STUOIO I CAR HOTEL

Th1s protect involves a conventional car con­

verted from carriage of passengers to st~rage of freight The dnver's seat remams unencum­bered; the rest of the car 1s f1lled w1th equip­ment and machinery

In the m1ddle of the car 1s a hydraulic piS­ton; attached to th1s are stackable beds/seat un1ts. A hydrauliC pump IS stored m the trunk

The shell of the car is separated and lilted.

hydraulically, off its floor. The shell functions as the roof of a four-story hotel. Each floor con s1sts of a bed made out of rubber for outdoor use· each bed is formed into a pillow at thet

• N xt to each sea head and a seat at the foot e

d th noor below 1S a television d1rected towar e of

' 1 tthefloor A chain ladder rolls up off a spoo a bOVB the car allowmg access to the stones aty trom

' . · h ghthBCI · The car IS dnven t rou hbOf·

nQOdtoneiQ place to place, from neighbor

1 whenever

hood providing a mobile hotel um 1 d ' ne1swane

one 1S needed. whenever 0 th Luis · A concl ~'~1

Designed by VitO c D nertv and Vera, Jenny Schnder, Charles o

Chnstma Arn

A plane of sand passes through the car 11 s1ts on the hood, 11 fills the ins1de of the cab m an L­shape (leav1ng room lor the dnver), 11 can­tilevers out from the trunk. The con tamer of the sand IS a thin, transparent box; its frame IS mir­rored stamless steel, rellectmg a silver of what IS outside. The hood and the trunk can still be opened w1th the plane of sand attached The sand IS loose 1ns1de 1ts container. The plane IS only three-quarters filled with sand, wh1ch shifts as the car moves.

Coming up through the sand are six televi­Sions, planted in clusters: two small TV's over the end of the hood; three TV's, b1g and small, InSide the car {the big TV cuts through the roof), and one b1g TV cantilevered out from the trunk The lelev1s1ons are embedded at different angles, With the screens fac1ng different direc­tions; the screens do not have to be seen There IS no need for sound; the TV's are used as the rocks of a Japanese garden The televisions show conventional channels, broadcast televi­Sion The programs change, hour by hour day by day, but the programm1ng stays the same.

As you dnve the car, you are s11t1ng m the middle of a Japanese ganden. If you are standmg

on the s1dewalk. the Japanese ganden passes you like a sh1p 1n the mght If you are 1n another car, you m1ght try to keep up w1th the garden­you are tra11ing 11. it 1s nght bes1de you, neck and neck. it 1s m v1ew but JUSt out of reach, until It turns the comer and disappears like a ghost.

Des1gned by Vito Acconc1 w1th LUIS Vera. Jenny Schnder, Charles Doherty. and Jean Hahn.

104 ACCONCI STUDIO I WORLD IN YOUR BONES

The understructure of this microenviron­ment is screwed into your bones like a pros­thetic skeleton. It lives on your back, on your limbs on your head; it moves as you move, and

' . . b t your bUSI-you barely not1ce 11 as you go a au ness. When you feel some need, the plot thick­ens: the tubes slide, pivot, telescope out- you

. bed your own become your own cha1r, your own •

vehicle. A microsh II Your head b e fans out over your head:

ecomes yo If' fans out ov ur 0 1ce. A macroshell er Your bod .

YOur house v· Y · your body becomes · ISitors ent coming in er your house as 1f

I Under yo eeches onto . ur clothes. Your house a a bUilding· Partment · you own your own f ' and YOU rom building to b . move your apartment

Ullding y · our house leeches

onto a plane, a tram, a sh1p, a car you nde tree

of charge. The operat1on was a success: not only IS

the pat1ent alive, the patient wakes up twice

the man he used to be. Designed by V1to Acconc1 w1th LUIS Vera,

Dano Nuiiez, Azarahksh Damood, and Tomas

Kmg.

On land, a rowboat rs sunk into the ground Its bow is frlled wrth sari and grass, a tree grows out of the bow, and the oars are embedded rn the ground as if rowing on land. You can step down into the boat and sit Inside, as If the land were water.

Facing this boat, in the water, is its mirror image: a rowboat wedged rnto a crrcular plane

of grass. The rowboat combrnes wrth the grass: as in the rowboat on shore, its bow is frlled wrth soil and grass, and a tree grows out of the bow.

You can step out onto the grass plane, or step into the boat and row. The boat takes wrth it the circular plane of grass, pulling out of a semicircular cut in the shore, so you can row your island out to sea.

Designed by Vito Acconci wrth Luis vera, Jenny Schrider, and Lrsa Albrn.

\ \

110 OFFICE OF MOBILE DESIGN I PORTABLE HOUSE

Harkening back to prehistoric models of shel­ter and dwelling, the Portable House adapts, relocates, and reorients itself to accommodate an ever-changing enVIronment. It offers an ecosensitive and economical alternative to the Increasingly ·expensive permanent structures that constitute most of today's hous1ng options. At the same time, the Portable House calls into QUestion preconceived notions of the trailer home and trailer park, creatmg an entirely new option for those w1th disposable mcome but insufficient resources for entering the conven­tional hous1ng market.

The Portable House's expandable/con­tractible spaces,the vary1ng degrees of translu­cency of its materials, and 1ts very portability render 11 umquely flexible and adaptable. Its

central kitchen/bath core divides and sepa­rates the sleeping space from the eatmg/livmg space in a compact assemblage of form and function. When additional space is required, the living-room structure can be extended out· ward to increase square footage. By design, the house can be maneuvered and reoriented to take advantage of natural light and a1rflow.

As an entity unto itself, the Portable House adapts to or creates new soc1al dynamics wher· ever 11 goes. For example, when individually owned units are grouped together, they can create common spaces for social interactions, such as gardens, courtyards, and s1de yards. or multiple units can be arranged by one owner to create separate but adjacent spaces for hvmg,

working, and socializing.

The Portable House's mobility, the way it moves across and rests lightly upon the land-scape ·d ' prov' es a provocative counterpoint to the status quo housing model. It recalls a time when the elements that constituted shelter were eas11y ma · 1 mpu ated to accommodate innu­merable va · bl offers lie .brlla es and conditions. It likewise

XI lily in th · · day living Wh e soclodynamlcs of every-open Ia d. ether momentarily located in the

n scape br' fl . space 0 . . ' le Y Situated in an urban

• r POSitiOned f the Portable Hou or a more lengthy stay, range ol ne d se accommodates a wide

e s and functions.

The Mobile Eco Lab was built m collaboratiOn with the Hollywood Beaut1ficalion Team, a grassroots group founded With the m1ssion to restore beauty and integnty to Los Angeles's Hollywood commumty. Verbal and visual ex­changes took place using computer-animated drawmgs, trad1t1onal draftmg, and large-scale modelmg techmques. Full-scale work was per.

112 OFFICE OF MOBILE DESIGN I MOBILE ECO LAB

formed with a defined material palette, specif· ically that of a donated cargo trailer and cast­offs from film sets. The 8-by-35-foot trailer now travels throughout Los Angeles County to inform K-12 schoolchildren about the Impor­tance of saving and protecltng our planet. Like a circus tent, th1s mobile icon arrives at the schoolyard, where the lab's elevated walkways fold down and slide out of the trailer's body. It IS immediately recognizable as a place for interaction, discovery, and fun.

As a working mobile classroom, the Eco Lab prov1des a base for a range of exhibitions­all of which focus on ecology. Arriving at the threshold of the tra1ler, a child climbs up a set of foldmg stairs that has been lowered by a nautical winch. When the stairway meets the ground, the attached springs and wheels SWIV­el into place, absorb the compression, and pro· vide access. Ascending the recycled expanded steel treads, the child enters a multimedia antechamber. The chamber facilitates learning by prov1dmg a computer for surfing the Internet on top1cs focusing on ecology. The young VISi­tors hear a video describing a tree's growth cycle. Each child is then given a small container

and a tree sapling to care for. Moving single file. the visitors emerge from the trailer onto a fold· down, tiered catwalk. As they advance, they move back into the body of the trailer. and reemerge outside onto a stage-like platform that rolls out of the wheel wells. Here the chil· dren water their saplings and the teacher uses this space to discuss each child's role in plant· 1ng trees and maintainmg a sustainable env1· ronment. Progressing to the core of the Eco Lab, visitors gather in the dappled light stream· ing through the woven wooden wall. The floor, engraved with a giant California oak leaf encir· cled by the words "you are ecology," provides the space for discussion and questions.

OFFICE OF MOBILE DESIGN MOBILE EGO LAB 113

114 OFFICE OF MOBILE DESIGN I ZEYOS KIOSK

The f1rm ZVO is a rising star in the rapidly expanding field of zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) des1gn and manufacture. Its designs for elec­tric bicycles have garnered praise from ecolog­ical groups and 1ndustnal designers alike.

The Zevos Kiosk 1s a lifestyle-driven appar­el and merchandising center. Th1s portable, flexible "store within a store" offers a retail and service hub 1deal for placement 1n umversity student centers, shopping malls, and airports­or anywhere else people gather for commerce and socializing.

The nature of the Zevos K1osk a/lows for wide-ranging flexibility of use. It moves about eas1ly on its wheeled base, which doub~es as a securable zvo bicycle repair and service sta­lion. The wings of its main structure can pivot open to reveal a simple and Interchangeable display system for ZVO bicycle accessones;

·1 saddle­portable palm-held computer um s, I t·ve-colored bags for laptop computers, a lerna 1

I Computer battery cartridges and cyclome ers ' . port posts momtors mounted on hmged sup . . f varymg dlfec-SWIVel about offenng v1ews rom

' . . for bus1ness lions. Whether the k1osk IS open 1 . losed secure Y w1th its wings spread Wide, or c

during off hours, these monitors run education­al, informational, or promotional consumer pro­gramming.

The dramatic profile of the Zevos K1osk evokes a sailboat at full mast, or a graceful butterfly. With its strikmg form and ongmality, 11 IS an instant attention-grabber. What is more, 1ts Iconographic foldmg screen/ike structure, made of lightweight materials, doubles as a billboard. With a clear display of product and logo, the Zevos Kiosk proclaims its purpose and wares wherever it travels-a umque, compact, all-purpose combination of market­Ing tool, product display, retail, technology access, and consumer information.

OFFICE OF MOBILE DESIGN ZEVOS KIOSK 115

The Portable Construction Traimng Center (PCTC) was conceived tor the Venice Commum­ty Housing Corporation, an organization found­ed with the m1ssion to develop and maintain permanently affordable housing tor disadvan­taged and low-income individuals. This non­profit organization affords an opportunity tor their student trainees to learn construction skills and in turn apply those skills to needed projects. The 14-by-65-foot PCTC is a hands­on classroom used as the focal point 1n thiS construction training process. The PCTC allows space tor the tour basic construction trades plumbing, paintmg and plaster repair, carpen­

try, and electncal. The des1gn concept encourages v1sual con-

nections between apprent1ce and teacher A

14-by-14-foot meeting space at the PCTC's threshold exh1blts construction example boards and prov1des a well-lit location to gather between bulldmg sess1ons. l.Jke a large porch. one entire length of the trailer folds open to reveal 1ntenor Independent workstatiOns. This creates a catwalk for the teachers. which facil­Itates mspect1on and Interaction. In thiS 90-degree pos1t1on. the operable translucent pan­els g1ve shade and regulate the natural ftow of hot and cool a1r. Additionally, the tar end of the PCTC folds open to prov1de a wood shop where tools can be disengaged to roll outs1de beyond the parameter of the trailer.

Portable, flexible, and operable, the PCTC 1s a symbol for alternative construction techniques and prov1des a place to teach those techniques. Des1gned w1th Pugh+Scarpa, Los Angeles and Woodbury Umvers1ty design/build students.

Fold out. Plug m. Boot up. The iMob1le is a rov­ing online portal for accessing the global com­munications networks and announcing the I at­est computer systems, peripherals, hardware, and software. Its six mdividual workpods are outfitted with complete computer set-ups, pro­grammable and adaptable as needed for new product promotiOn or sampling.

Marvel at the remarkable efficiency of a dynamic mobile enterprise. The iMob1le gath­ers up the information superhighway and rolls it out along our everyday streets and roads. It IS here that the workplace effortlessly evolves, enabling businesses to respond to the need tor augmentation, contraction, and metamorpho­SIS. The !Mobile offers building solutions to the

mob1le entrepreneur. Based on an economy of movement, where form follows necessity, this adaptable and flexible structure is always responsive to its immediate and shifting envi­ronment. Composed and durably constructed from high-quality, light, and affordable materi­als, this self-sufficient and relocatable struc­ture gives shape to the metropolis of the future.

The !Mobile goes anywhere. It is a mobile sl tore, bringing the shopping experience dlrect­Y to the c onsumer-whether parked in com-mercial park 1 • . . lng ots, VISiting neighborhoods With hm1ted c at omputer access, creating a scene

outdoor pubr ind 1

IC events, or partiCipating in us ry conventJo ('M · the ns I ob1le rolls nght mto convention ve .

display . nue, an mstant promotional UOIII).

The 1Mob1le represents the future standard of specialized, multipurpose consumer-directed marketing and customer serv1ce. With its stnk­mg, dramatic des1gn, the 1Mob1le combmes forces w1th existing mnovat1ve products that have become 1conograph1c emblems of new technologies. Wherever 1t travels, the !Mobile IS a umque marketmg device-a recogmzable,

self-contamed promotional umt that unfolds before your eyes and mv1tes you to come on 1n, have a seat, and take a spm.

OFFICE OF MOBILE OESIGN I 120 MOBILE EVENT CITY ARCHITECTURE

The Mobile Event City Architecture (MECA) pro­Vides an over 11

. a upgrade of event facilities for a SOCially con at sctous event-planning firm that cre-

es mull!day o td of AIDS u oar charity events In support

cause ' breast cancer, world hunger and like

s. The goal . ' ntghu IS to Provtde structures for thetr

Y encamp me t th . adaptabl n s at are eas11y relocatable,

e to varymg site conditions, climate con-

trolled, clean, well lit, and v1sually striking-and that help engender 1nt1mate soctal interaction.

Four possible master-pian schemes assem­ble the campstte components into a four-bered hierarchy, whtch can then be organized either around a central gathenng space (Town Square), along a linear comdor (Main Street), or tn a com­

btnatton thereof

OFFICE OF MOBILE DESIGN I MOBILE EVENT CITY ARCHITECTURE 121

OFFICE OF MOBILE DESIGN I 122 MOBILE EVENT CITY ARCHITECTURE

OFFICE OF MOBILE DESIGN I

MOBILE EVENT CITY ARCHilECTUIIE 123

lnd1v1dual campsrte elements, such as Med1caJ Serv1ces. Outreach (markeMgJ, Vend· mg Y1osks, and the "Remembrance Place,• use emtmg truck types as po1nts of departure, then hybnd1ze them w1th tens1le fabnc struc· lures. These compact, self-contamed mobile structures are weather res1stant, hyg1emc, and easy to deploy and relocate. As they untold, slide open, p1vot, and pull apart to expand their floor areas their fabric components tal<e shape to form roots, walls, and overhangs transform· mg their host vehicles 1nto umqua, wondrous

building/machines. The master plans call for the primary

structures to be s1tuated along an elevated bOardwall< that e1ther extends lmearly along Mam Street or circumscnbes the Town Square Th1s ra1sed thoroughfare. composed ol sec· lions that slide out of each veh1cle and 1nter· lock, unifies the disparate elements to the Mob1le C1ty, prov1d1ng 1dent1hable and access!· ble c~rculat1on that is also a level alternat1ve to an often uneven ground plane ThiS stream· lines the orgamzal1on of camps1te operat1ons and augments the overall level of comfort and care afforded to event participants

OFFICE Of ~OBILE QESlGII I ~OBILE EVENT art AJICHITECTURE 125

OFfiCE OF MOBILE DESIGN I 126 MOBILE EVENT C11"1' ARCHITECTURE

Also av311able from Pnnceton Archrtectural Press:

PneumatiCS and Protest m '68 edited by Marc Dessauce The French students of Utop1e des1gn Inflatable structures. f1lled with the prom1se of move­ment. energy, and escape, to challenge the established authonty. 1-56898-176-7

Enc Howeler and Jeanme Mee)in Yoon Mix and match the crowns, shafts, and bases of twenty-seven of the world's tallest bUIIdmgs 10 th1s playful and creat1ve book 1-56898-229-1