Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
to new forms of art and cultural expression. It seeks dynamic alternatives to the
standard form of doctoral and post doctoral research while producing, if not
exceeding, outcomes of comparable rigour, innovation and depth.
54
The Fun Palace
the high PoiNt of fuNctioNalism is the coNcePt of a house as a “ma-
chiNe for liviNg iN.” but the bias is towards a machiNe that acts
as a tool serviNg the iNhabitaNt. this NotioN will, i believe, be
refiNed iNto the coNcePt of aN eNviroNmeNt
wITh
which the iNhabitaNt
cooPerates aNd
In
which he caN exterNalize his meNtal Processes.
Gordon Pask,
“the architectural relevaNce of cyberNetics”
(1969a, 496)
If the sixties were the decade of interactive art, they were also the decade of
interactive and adaptive architecture. In Britain, the Archigram group of ar-
chitects built almost nothing, but the designs featured in
Archigram
magazine
were iconic for this movement. Ron Herron's fanciful Walking City (fig. 7.20)
in 1964 caught the mood, adaptive in the sense that if the city found itself
somehow misfitted to its current environment, well, it could just walk off to
find somewhere more congenial. Peter Cook's concept of the Plug-In City was
a bit more realistic: the city as a mesh of support services for otherwise mobile
units including housing—the city that could continually reconfigure itself in
relation to the shifting needs and desires of its inhabitants.
55
Figure 7.20.
the walking city, 1964. source: sadler 2005, 39, fig. 1.32.
