the Plug-In City

Roughly forty-five years ago, Peter Cook of Archigram began work on the Plug-In City, and members of Archigram continued to develop the project in greater detail until 1966.

A megastructure of infrastructure connects towering silos of moveable units - later dubbed "capsules" - so that shops can relocate with changes in business and a family can move on a whim, all connected to a grid providing each capsule with its necessary functions - power, water, and means of communication. Each silo has its own purpose, from schools to commerce to dwellings.

The mobility of these capsules is provided by giant cranes which lift and move them; the mobility of the essential functions is proposed to be provided by hovercraft moving in between the silos.

drawing by Peter Cook

original illustration

On a human scale, the plug-in city represents possibilities and a return of civilized culture to a nomadic population, with the abilities and desires to move in short periods of time. It will turn into a mobile and well-connected culture, a population accustomed to following jobs and other resources as they move. The obstacles of relocation will be significantly reduced, and jobs, houses, and lives will become semi-permanent and more worldly.

This society built upon temporary elements would ironically become more permanent. The adaptability of the small details to a gradually changing civilization would keep society alive, revisable, and workable, reducing the need for mass reconstruction. The ever-moving and ever-changing elements of the design would create a large-scale level of solidity and stability that the world has not yet experienced.drawings courtesy of Archigram
original illustration

These semi-nomadic people, with their travelling shops and homes, would be part of a megastructure of resources, just as earlier civilizations built around their resources. This is just an expansion upward and outward of the resources. This level of connectivity via resources is a permanent house for impermanent objects.

This megastructure is meant to infiltrate the city as already built, using paths made by roads for cranes and expanding on infrastructure that already exists. Archigram even went on to propose that this megastructure could penetrate city boundaries and connect entire countries. Might we see entire countries covered in a mega-grid of power, water, and transportation (both the transportation of capsules and of people)?

drawing courtesy of Archigram
original illustration

The Plug-In City would serve as a physical representation of mobility and adabtability while also promoting a unity and connection that modern society has yet to see. We are exchanging information faster and further than ever before, and the Plug-In City would help to turn this virtual exchange into something tangible - the efficient and easy exchange of physical objects and space, and the direct sharing of physical resources over the vastest expanses.


sources:
ARCHIGRAM.
Cook, Peter
Chalk, Warren

Archigram: Architecture without Architecture.
Sadler, Simon