In the eighties, the Californian writer Alvin Toffler envisioned the home as a place of residence, work and entertainment at the same time. Anticipating the digital revolution, he affirmed that new systems of production were beginning to take workers out of factories and offices, putting them back to the home or rather, toward “the electronic cottage,” a new idea of suburban living supported by teleworking. Even today, according to Rem Koolhaas, suburban space is where the most radical transformations are taking place. In recent years indeed, widespread drone use increases aerial transport, eliminating the need to live in the city center. A number of companies have begun to use unmanned aerial vehicles to produce shipments. Amazon uses drones to place large packages inside factories and to deliver mail to residences, Google is experimenting drones for medical aid, and Facebook wants to use them to spread Internet in the parts of the world that are not yet connected to the physical web. Looking at these precedents, this paper investigates peripheral architectures which reaffirm the value of the countryside within a technological and digital society. In particular, this research reports a vision for an archipelago of single-family houses, designed and built in the countryside north of Rome from 2010 onwards. These buildings introduce an innovative ultra-residential house typology: a suburban villa which combines private and public realm, at a time when not just business but also collective life takes place at home, once again. This design implements a symbiotic relationship between architecture, engineering and digital technologies in order to create low-cost, energy-saving, and self-sufficient residencies, almost disconnected from any kind of public network, and equipped with devices that allow drones to land and to be encapsulated within the dwelling-place.
Lina Malfona, Ultra-residential. Architectural Explorations in the Roman Countryside, in Skënder Luarasi, Valerio Perna (eds.), Foreseeing Uncertainty: Design & Non-Normativity
Lina Malfona
2019-01-01
Abstract
In the eighties, the Californian writer Alvin Toffler envisioned the home as a place of residence, work and entertainment at the same time. Anticipating the digital revolution, he affirmed that new systems of production were beginning to take workers out of factories and offices, putting them back to the home or rather, toward “the electronic cottage,” a new idea of suburban living supported by teleworking. Even today, according to Rem Koolhaas, suburban space is where the most radical transformations are taking place. In recent years indeed, widespread drone use increases aerial transport, eliminating the need to live in the city center. A number of companies have begun to use unmanned aerial vehicles to produce shipments. Amazon uses drones to place large packages inside factories and to deliver mail to residences, Google is experimenting drones for medical aid, and Facebook wants to use them to spread Internet in the parts of the world that are not yet connected to the physical web. Looking at these precedents, this paper investigates peripheral architectures which reaffirm the value of the countryside within a technological and digital society. In particular, this research reports a vision for an archipelago of single-family houses, designed and built in the countryside north of Rome from 2010 onwards. These buildings introduce an innovative ultra-residential house typology: a suburban villa which combines private and public realm, at a time when not just business but also collective life takes place at home, once again. This design implements a symbiotic relationship between architecture, engineering and digital technologies in order to create low-cost, energy-saving, and self-sufficient residencies, almost disconnected from any kind of public network, and equipped with devices that allow drones to land and to be encapsulated within the dwelling-place.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
