Archigram

After all the research I did for my final project, I could probably write a slew of posts just on kinetic architecture but this one I thought was especially interesting: Archigram

According to wikipedia:


Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s - based at the Architectural Association, London - that was futurist, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical project

(already at this point I loved it... futurist... anti-hero... avant-garde... i'm there!)

This was their most famous project that reminded me of my final project as well. Sure this is all far out and most likely will never happen blah blah but man is this cool or what?

The Walking City, Ron Herron, 1964

The Walking City is constituted by intelligent buildings or robots that are in the form of giant, self contained living pods that could roam the cities. The form derived from a combination of insect and machine and was a literal interpretation of Corbusier's aphorism of a house as a machine for living in. The pods were independent, yet parasitic as they could 'plug in' to way stations to exchange occupants or replenish resources. The citizen is therefore a serviced nomad not totally dissimilar from today's executive cars. The context was perceived as a future ruined world in the aftermath of a nuclear war.