Adaptability to mobile life

A french designer, Matalie Crasset, created this "hospitality tower" called "When James comes to Paris". It's for people who receive friends and don't know where let them slip. It was inspired by the cramped studio apartements of Paris and is designed to make overnight guest feel welcome, even when the host has a minimum amount of place to offer.

This is a reaction to our mobile life style. In our society we travel a lot thanks to fast transportation and meet people living far from our home. This is very normal to go see them and travel cheaper in the same time, particulary in the student life. This tower offers a place to sleep to friends when they come to visit.

When the tower is open it offers a mattress to sleep, but Matalie Crasset has considered other needs, a personnal lamp and an alarm clock. When it is closed the tower occupies a small place. It can be stocked in a corner until the next friend comes. It fits perfectly to the student's accommodations.

It shows that we more mobile and we use our friend network to socialize and travel, so a new need appears, how to receive friends temporarily. The solution is to change the space to receive them, the column is a example of adaptability system.

Mobility Flexibility

This is informations I found in a book called " Flexible Architecture that responds to change" written by Robert Kronenburg (Lawrence King publishing, 2007, London).

It's very interesting, it says that mobility is connected to 4 other notions
Mobility - adaptability

- transformation
- movability

- interaction

Flexible architecture refers to buildings that are designed to respond easily to change thoughout their lifetime. They get advantages of technical innovation, are economically and ecologically viable.

ADAPTABILITY: buildings that are designed to adjust to different functions, users, climate change

TRANSFORMATION: buildings that change shape, space, form or appearance by the physical alteration of their structures, skin or internal surfaces. Architecture that opens, closes, expands and contracts

MOVABILITY: buildings that relocate from place to place in order to fulfil their function better. Architecture that rolls, floats or flies

INTERACTION: Buildings that respond to user's requirements in automatic or intuitive ways.

I have different examples for those notions
Adaptability

Park Bench House is abench by day and a bed by night. It's a rudimentary shelter for people who sleep rough in public spaces.

Transformation

With the free floors, the Pompidou centre's interior is completly movable

Movability

Mobile ICHIJYO/1 and Mobile ICHIJYO/2 are portable tea rooms that pack away in a aluminum case. The roof is suspended from above by a series of cables hooked on to nearby supports. A translucente curtain creates an intimate room for quiet contemplation.

Interaction

Rotor House, Luigi Coliani, 2004, tube with a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, you can switch from one to another by rolling the tube

Amandeep

Hey Floraine- I think your brain storm is really good as it picks out the main points that we've discussed about mobility over the blog.

I think in terms of architecture, I would say adaptability is the one of the most desirable traits we as architects are striving to build within our designs.

I think another good point you mentioned was the idea of the internet being a portal for share and debate, which maybe one of the reasons its so successful...

I would agree that mobility is all those things mentioned, and maybe the idea of mobility will evolve even more in the future..

I Love your sketches!! Really Cool! And I agree with you on the idea of home changes due to type of culture and people are occupying that area. I also think there maybe other things that create differences between cultures, such as location, language and technology available at the time and many more..

Research around mOBILITY

Hi I waited long time before I share my work by it's here now!

Above there is the connections between mobility and the other ideas as adaptability and accessibility which are in my opinion the most interesting aspects of mobility. These two notions are connected to the social, because people can interact if the way meeting is fair and adapted to everyone.
If everybody can access to a form of mobility, share, debate, it garantees a general success as internet.

That's why I will work around the social aspect of mobility, both physical and virtual but more virtual I think.