An ever changing community

Last week I finally had my graduation ceremony. There was a presentation about the future of the built environment and this picture really stood out to me.

It is a picture of A Walking City. This was an idea proposed by the British architect Ron Herron in 1964. Ron Herron was part of an architectural group, Archigram, formed in the 1960s. They drew inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality. Their ideas provoked debates as they attempted to combine architecture, technology and society.

Ron Herron proposed building massive mobile structures that could freely roam the world and move to wherever their resources or manufacturing abilities were needed. Various walking cities could interconnect with each other when needed. The individual building or structures that made this walking city could also be mobile and be moved to wherever their owner wanted or needed.

This leads me to think of how people's needs are ever changing, but most of the time our living environment is not. I believe it is important to introduce a great amount of flexibility, change and temporariness in the designs of our "little city".

Another great example of a proposal of Archigram that promotes flexibility, change and temporariness is The Plug-In City. The Plug-In City was proposed in 1964 and it offered a new way of looking at infrastructure's role in the city. The Plug-In City can also be seen in the background of the first picture of The Walking City. The proposals of Archigram suggest a nomadic way of life and a give a great deal of freedom to its inhabitants.

This proposal suggests a vertical city containing modular residential units that "plug in" to a central infrastructure system. The Plug-In City is in fact and evolving and ever changing structure. All the essential units and services are movable by giant cranes. The concept is nicely explained in the following video:

Though these works were never built, they have definitely served as a source of inspiration to many and can also be a source of inspiration for us!

The works of Archigram inspirated works like the Centre Pompidou (1971-1977) in Paris, by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano. This building was designed in the style of "high-tech architecture". It houses a public library, the Musée National d'Art Moderne (which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe) and IRCAM (a centre for music and acoustic research). So this building is in every sense a "high-tech multi functional building" inspired by ideas that were proposed nearly ten years before!

So in conclusion: These (and possibly other) proposals of Archigram can serve as inspiration and motivation for us to design for the future. Between 1960 and 1974 Archigram created over 900 drawings! So there is more than enough information and inspiration to be found 😊 I believe these concepts definitely belong in the "inspiration/food for thought" corner.

Great source for more information: https://www.archdaily.com/399329/ad-classics-the-plug-in-city-peter-cook-archigram

#community #urbanism #infrastructure