A Walking City for the 21st Century, © Poliedro, retreived from ArchDaily
Recently, this roaming city project by Spanish thesis student Manuel Domínguez featured on ArchDaily got me thinking about the trajectory of relocatable cities throughout recent history. Archigram’s walking city is an obvious parallel, but what is interesting about Domínguez’s project is that it isn’t necessarily purely conceptual; his calculations ostensibly demonstrate that the project is structurally feasible (which Herron’s certainly is not).
Walking City, Archigram
Walking City, Archigram
But I also thought, is the idea of a roving city really that radical? What of cruise ships, that house thousands of people and many of the necessary accouterments for a more-or-less urban life; movie theaters, swimming pools, shopping malls and theaters? Navy vessels function similarly as a floating city, with a more efficient approach.
Cross section, Carvinal Cruise ship
And what else could be considered a roving city? Mongolian nomads, following their herds throughout the country’s vast steppes? Or a western version, the retiree’s RV club? These ‘dispersed’ roving city concepts remind me of Superstudio’s grid, a kind of inversion of the walking city.
Superstudio
Nomad Yurts, Mongolia, from Anthropocene Journal
Laguna Woods Village RV club
Arch_Kiosk 