Brendan Woodley: MOBILE/DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURE

So what exactly is MOBILE & DISTRIBUTEDarchitecture????

The initial reaction is "a building that moves" or a series of buildings, somehow linked over distance, capable of interaction or travel. Movement/mobility however can come in many ways, and architecture in many scales and form.

Is it possible for an architecture to be independently mobile?

Is the built form an extension of or a new form of car, boat, train, plane, crane etc.?

Can a whole building/city be a giant wheel, capable of steering itself and following a highway around the country?

Or is it dependently mobile?

Does it rely on various forms of transportation to move it?

images from http://webecoist.com/2010/09/20/mobile-cities-11-visionary-habitats-roaming-future-earth/

A mobile architecture could be portable by individual users or portable in parts by multiple users. This way small scale spaces can transport and assemble within larger groups of individuals. It could be a nomadic architecture of sorts, carried by communities in search of fresh resources. This leads to the idea of a city being capable of its own resource and land management, picking up and moving to new locations to ensure the survival of its inhabitants, leaving its old camping ground to regenerate over time.

Within the specific context of Australia’s environment, what would be the most efficient way for architecture to be mobile and reach more people? Being a Country “Girt by Sea”, and with the majority of our population dwelling in coastal areas, architecture/cities could take to the ocean. Parliament can become a floating capital, capable of touring the nation, perhaps even setting sail for foreign lands.

As always, I try to find examples of what is already out there and what concepts people have been working on that might help me understand the problem or spark new ways of thinking big. Here are a few examples I found of this Idea of floating architecture, capable of self-sufficiency with food production and energy generation. These are not my own work, but somewhat illustrate a direction I may choose to take with a form of mobile architecture.