Archigram was an architectural firm formed in 1960 in London by Sir Peter Cook. Archigram was a futuristic architecture firm which plans for futuristic designs by a British architect and professor. The word Archigram was derived from Architecture Telegram, which means sending a message through architecture to tell a story or give a meaning. Archigram describe their architecture as ‘an instrument of political, social and cultural critique by experimenting with collages, music, performance art, furniture, graphic design, zines, installations, events, and exhibitions’ (Hasan H.G, 2017).
Peter Cook was the visionary creator of archigram plug in city. His plan in the plug in city was to incorporate a megastructure which linked residences, access routes, transportation and all essential services by the use of cranes to reorganize their city depending on the use of it at that time. He planned to create wearable houses, walking cities which were not fixed and impermanent to create a more flexible society to suite the living at that certain time. The plug in city is centered on a large modular unit to supply all the power and physically connect all the sources together. the plug in city was to allow for no city buildings but to create a giant megastructure with machines taking over all the work and using people just as raw materials.
Cook describes his architecture as clothing for his city, which can contract and expand depending on when and where the model was to be used. The plug in city is represented as being provocative to suggest a fantasy city which contains a central main machine which all the other elements transportation, buildings, cranes are all connected to this central element. This is the idea of a megastructure which is a way to provide continual circulation without any boundaries this is what Archigram describes as urbanism. This was used as a way to transform the architecture inside-out by creating expendable designs, elements and structures, allowing cranes to slide back and forth to re-organize the city the way in a way which people get the most functionality out of it. Archigram believed that this idea would lead to the aggregation into urbanism as it provides functionality and artistic elements to the surroundings. Cook designed this sort of architecture as a way to represent the rapid change and growth post world war 2 however he also created a piece of architecture which is impossible to ever finish with all new inspirations constantly changing. These changes all heavily relied on the duty of the cranes.
After researching about the plug in city the way the city moves around really stood out to me even more than the central source as without the use of the cranes this plug in city would not be possible to move around and would not be able to reach such high heights. To represent the size of these buildings they compared by relating to a real life examples of how place and high rises could be changed as shown in Figure 3 by the Montreal Tower.
Therefore, I chose to focus on the hammerhead crane located in Garden Island Sydney in the naval dockyard, this crane was inspired by ‘the fall of Singapore’ which resulted in the loss of many lives and the destruction of their hammerhead crane. In 1951 this hammerhead crane was complete and was used to lift and transport heavy military grade weapons on and off battleships. However, in 2007 because of the constantly changing laws of NSW for risks and as the material of the crane began to degrade they considered this landmark a “Heritage at risk” by NSW national Trust (Hammerhead Crane, Garden Island Naval Dockyard, Sydney, 2015). We may consider this hammerhead crane as a famous landmark due to it’s significance and representation including unique structural design.
In my design my focus was, what if we could still control and use this crane and apply it to Peter Cooks plug in city to move elements and use it to create the mega structure which Archigram was aiming to build. I did this by incorporating multiple hydraulic systems each serving different purposes.
Design Process
Below are all the different prototypes and experimenting with different materials before creating my final outcome. After creating these models it also allowed me and provided me with the information I needed to create my final model.
As you can see from figure 6, everything is interchangeable and can be easily changed, I did this by using velcro to stick and separate the buildings easily. However, I felt after creating these models none of these changes would be possible without the use of the crane. This is why I decided to create a crane for my final model.
References
Websites
Muscato, C. 2018, Archigram: Plug-in-City, The Walking City & Instant City | Study.com, viewed 6 May 2018, <https://study.com/academy/lesson/archigram-plug-in-city-the-walking-city-instant-city.html>.
Merin, G. 2013, AD Classics: The Plug-In City / Peter Cook, Archigram, ArchDaily, viewed 6 May 2018, <https://www.archdaily.com/399329/ad-classics-the-plug-in-city-peter-cook-archigram>.
Moma.org. 2014, Peter Cook. Plug-in City: Maximum Pressure Area,MoMA,viewed 6 May 2018, <https://www.moma.org/collection/works/797>.
Baldwin, E. 2017, Archigram, Archdaily, viewed 6 May 2018, <https://www.archdaily.com/tag/archigram>.
Archigram.net. 2012, ARCHIGRAM, viewed 7 May 2018, <http://www.archigram.net/about.html>.
Clark, M. and Gibson, J. 2014, Hammerhead Crane, Garden Island Naval Dockyard, Sydney, ASHET, viewed 8 May 2018,< https://ashet.org.au/hammerhead-crane-garden-island-naval-dockyard-sydney/>.
Heath, A. 2013, What is Archigram?, viewed 8 May 2018, <http://akheath.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/what-is-archigram.html>.
Books
Sadler, S. 2005, Archigram, 1st edn, MIT Press.
Videos
Jamalyh, G. and Busch, M. 2005, Archigram Plug in City, Youtube, viewed 8 May 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj7N3hpZW5I>.
Palica, M. and Eksi, C. 2012, Plug-in City,Youtube,viewed 8 May 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwTRBSUg6Zw>.