CV08, the suburb-eating robot
14
Mar 2009
By Marco Castroni — Filed under: Architects , Design , Landscape , Politics , Refurbishment , Sustainability , Urban Design , Urban Planning , Andrew Maynard, archigram, Australia, robot, suburbs
Peak oil is approaching. In the next future, most of the oil-dependent suburbs in which we live now will be abandoned and decay, turning into ruins, inhabited only by the few ones who where too fat and too car-dependent to escape back to the city. Little by little, nature will take over suburbs, but this process will be extremely slowly.
In order to give Mother Nature a hand, Andrew Maynard Architects have designed CV08, the suburb-eating robot.
As it wanders through the suburbs, CV08 aspires people, houses and cars with its legs, and turns them back into nature’s products.
Archigram’s concepts, with a manga touch, together for suburbs renewal.
More info on this project, here on the architect’s website.
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24 comments »
哦！
excellent idea !!! drawings are fantastic,
Lipoleg shooting out bikes and l.sucked people!!
well lifestyle change might actually work after this stressful experience followed by adrenaline shoot out and landing/ bike acquiring :D
good ideas 但是这要什么时候才能实现啊 路漫漫其修远兮啊
There is a refreshing consistency to Mr. Castroni’s ramblings (in mangled English) that is perfectly illustrative of the Lamborghini Espada school of communist thought from which this ejecta spews.
Why wish for fantasmagorical robots when Aetna or Vesuvio will do the anti-humanist job just as well?
Terry Glenn Phipps
Wall-e
aspires people? nazi stuff
Yeah, great idea, guys, and so original too. Funny, where do I think I’ve seen the idea of a big machine reinventing the suburbs before? Oh yeah that’s it, Archigram, Peter Cook, 1960s. It seems the dude behind this 5 minute wonder couldn’t even be bothered to think up this own graphic style, let alone idea.
As Terry Glenn Phipps alludes to, this is the reason that architects have such a stinking reputation, with our “we know what’s best for you” attitudes. Its funny, if you look at any survey of where people want to live in the UK, they want leafy suburbs. But we, as architects must deny them their preference, as they are idiots and don’t know as much as us, the all-seeing, uber-profession.
Hark at us. If we were really so smart, we’d have figured out how to get paid a decent salary for working all hours by now.
Oh, and I forgot two words.
Remote working.
dream on, impossible
@GX: it’s not a sin to dream thou….
@Castroni…refreshing and fun…sometimes we need this utopian idea in midst of tiring urban growth…
keep the spirit up!
@gx. perhaps you’re referring to the idea of people actually ditching the suburban lifestyle in favor of a more urban lifestyle. i think its imperative that we designers think about this potential future population shift. we are the ones who will be called upon to make increasingly populated urban spaces livable. our urban spaces have been seriously improving recently but a great influx of population can set all this progress back by decades. so, if someone needs a suburb eating robot to get the creative juices flowing, i say roll with it. we all know that brainstorming never hurt a project.
99% of the worlds population currently thinks that architects are naive, arrogant and complete detached from the wants and desires of everyday society….
and then this ego driven project comes along and seals the deal.
I am no fan of the suburbs and the waste that they enshrine, but I am entirely convinced that this project will do, and most likely was designed to do, nothing more than draw attention to its designer.
Anyone who was serious about tackling our cities problems would spend less time drawing attention to the situation and more time seriously considering a way of bridging the gap and sincerely proposing a way forward.
Suburbs are BAD! City is GOOD! What else would you like to force down my throat! Unbelievably ignorant! not to mention Fascist!!
Last night, I haven’t dreamed about you…
I wonder why something like that would be posted here.. and if that’s the only idea that dude can come up with, he better check his literature, or we can send him one of these:
http://www.teefonline.com/site/wp-content/ghost_in_the_shell-dented-tachikoma.jpg
now please excuse me while I change cyborg bodies
what’s wrong with you people.. shhish, don’t you get the irony, joke or whatever! it’s not a project, it’s something like a… Architoon:)))
I wonder if intensive, small-scale agriculture would redeem the burbs as we shift from the carbon economy. The lots are often as big as an average Chinese farm.
Why no just employ people to demolish the abandoned homes, it would take awhile but at least its offering people jobs..
Its absurdity is the point; this is of course a joke. Yes, it carries a critique of the suburban lifestyle…or rather of its un-sustainability. But please folks, the tongue is firmly in cheek here.
It seems the dude behind this 5 minute wonder couldn’t even be bothered to think up this own graphic style, let alone idea
What, it’s not okay to give a nod? Do you really think the author of this folly was unaware of Archigram, or was in any way trying to hide his inspiration? Projects such as these are an homage. It’s called respect. Get your head out of your bottom and kindly acquire a sense of humor.
Yes, many would love to live in the suburbs: the air is fresh and there is privacy. The point here is that the resources that have enabled this lifestyle are depleting. It’s fair to consider that electric cars or some other mode of transportation – or transformation of industry, as Mr. Kent suggests in remote working – may allow for the status quo to continue. But short of that, the costs associated with heat/energy/transport may exceed the market’s ability to bear it, and you could see a strong trend toward reurbanization. What will happen to the ruins of the suburbs then? No, it won’t be eaten by a giant robot. But such images cast light on the debate. Their ridiculousness underscores a very sober discussion.
Scarpesez – I think we need to draw a line between ‘a nod’ and just lazy copying, don’t we? The idea is so trite, so pointless, as to not warrant the five minutes it would have taken to bosh out in SketchUp. What’s more interesting is the Pavlovian acceptance that the majority of architects have that high density = the utopian solution, the only option.
I’d like to see more architects engaging with the pointlessness of consumption, the removal from nature, binge drinking, career and financial success over health and lifestyle that urban living generally results in, and contrast that to people who make more modest lives for themselves in small villages and towns and work local, with close awareness of how much crap they consume and actually doing a lot of ‘non-consumption’ leisure. Why do we all blindly accept the post WW2 model that consumption is good because it drives the economy? Why do we all accept that GDP growth is the zenith of our attainment? That would be an interesting approach. This is so 1995, Richard Rogers; its been said before, and so much better. Hardly a critique. A bland one-liner with poor graphics, yes.
Calgary could use a few of these! We are a city with a footprint approximately 10x that of Manhattan yet with on an eighth of the population. Sprawl has become the norm, and it continues with blatant disregard for the environment and the future of the city. My applause for taking such an extreme yet innovative look into what is becoming a vastly growing problem in many present day cities!
I don’t know what’s funnier, the proposal or all of you people getting so bent out of shape about it! Stop taking yourselves so seriously!
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