Housing: The Latest Architecture and News

“With the forgiveness of the master [Le Corbusier], the house is a machine to carry with you and the city a machine to which you connect”. That phrase was said almost 60 years ago by David Greene, the founder of the English group Archigram. He was speaking on the presentation of the Living Pod, a capsule house that could be transformed into a trailer. The idea was that the structure could be connected and disconnected from the cities, forming the Plug-In City. Designed as an airtight capsule, the interior was small and comfortable, with multiple compartments. The Living Pod was one of many similarly utopian and daring projects by this group that seemed to have a fixation on nomadic and mutant structures like the Walking City and the Instant City.

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Freakonomics has just posted a fascinating new podcast that takes on the question posed by Alastair Townsend in our AD original article: “Why Japan is Crazy About Housing.” The podcast consults with Townsend and economic experts to present a thought-provoking answer to the puzzling question of why Japan builds architecture that is avant-garde and yet, ultimately, disposable. The answer may just surprise you. Listen to the whole podcast here:

d3 has just announced the winners of its annual Housing Tomorrow competition, a competition that urges its participants to "deploy innovative, socially- and environmentally-engaged approaches to residential urbanism, architecture, interiors, and designed objects" in order to determine "new architectonic strategies for living in the future." As always, the results are fantastic, thought-provoking visions of a more sustainable world. See the winners, after the break.

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