Although shared car culture is on the rise, most cars are still owned by someone with a living space, and in this regard the car could be considered a satellite room of one’s home. Beyond its transportation function, this machine is a temporary place to dwell- maybe the closest thing to Corbusier’s ‘a machine for living in’. Designed to be ergonomic and withstand most weather, the interior of a car is a relatively confortable isolated space, perhaps to some more so than a home.
Most the time there is only one person in a car. This could be the most ‘quiet’ or private time someone has in their day; it can be an escape to smoke, to sing at top of one’s lungs, to have a conversation, to meditate, to be lulled by hum of traffic, and of course to frolic. This small autonomous room moves through public space yet remains private. In the space between two bumpers, like bookends, a lot of stories unfold.
In a society where the centrepiece of its organization is clear boundaries between public and private, the car has the potential to navigate between the two. It is a hybrid of nomadic existence with an interior space of private property.
The current resurgence of the mobile tiny house movement, where homes move with their owners like a creature with a carapace, is an interesting phenomenon.
Ironically this polluting machine is often the easiest get away from raucous city life to nature that would otherwise be inaccessible.
These thoughts on the car, our cities, our bodies and the movement hindered or enabled through space are influencing the evolution of the project.
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