Gothamist: Living in the Future

Gari N. Corp

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 18:46:48 -0500

Tell you what it reminds me of exactly. Alain Bublex' Plug-In City from 2000. An amazingly cool set of pictures showing just such a series of prefabricated living units being helicoptered all over the place: http://www.galerie-vallois.com/fr/artistes/bublex/oe4.html

streetsy

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:40:50 -0500

i'd definitely buy something like this-- but i'd be a little concerned about the quality. you want something that has a little weight to it-- otherwise neil is right-- it'd get blown straight off the building.

Michael G. Richard

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 14:15:57 -0500

Mike from Treehugger.com here. Thanks for the link! The loftcube is indeed better adapted to NYC than to most other places (except maybe for Tokyo).

Brightliner

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:08:36 -0500

This reminds me of Buckminster Fuller's Triton City concept. See this page. (Sorry, it's in Italian, but it has the best pictures of it. Use Google's language tools if you want to read a fairly good translation of it.) The first set of pictures includes two of Triton City. Ignore the pyramid, which is Tetra City, a different Fuller concept. Triton City was supposed to be modular. You could just take a habitat module and plug in into any space you buy or rent on the face of the city. Moving would be a lot simpler. Instead of packing everything up and renting a van, just have your module unplugged and moved with everything inside. Maybe it's about time for floating cities near NYC. The real estate in NYC is just too limited. Too much demand and the supply isn't getting any bigger. Going offshore would open up so much potential.

S.D.

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:32:31 -0500

Trailer Park of the Future??

Jones

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:42:45 -0500

I too have been thinking about the pre-fab option for a couple of years now, as the designs have gotten much cooler. In particular I like the roof idea for New York, but I'm curious as to what the logistics would be on securing such a place? Do you just approach a landlord and try to "buy" a part of his roof space? doesn't seem viable. If he sells the building, surely your plot of roof is in peril subject to the whims of the new owner. And this is all assuming one can even cut such a roof deal. I'd love it if that loftcube site (or Jake) would give us some links to info on 1)people who have actually done this, or 2)possible solutions on how to "buy" space on the roof of a building. The prefab house is the easy part. Securing the roof seems like the pie-in-the-sky hard part that makes the whole thing break down. Although I'd really love to do this...

neil

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:34:04 -0500

why does it look like a strong wind could blow this over?