Abstract

The articles attempts to make readers more familiar with unconventional architectural solutions. This time around, the author writes about economical mobile homes, designed by the London-based N55 group: "The small projects of N55 could be referred to as travelling on foot. But then, doesn't each trip start with a first step? This one is taken towards water. This is so probably because, in this privatised world, waterside areas have retained the status of a common good at least to some degree. It is not accidental that, when being moored to the banks of Amsterdam or London, river boats become the homes of people who are in love with the idea of freedom. This is just the frame of mind that N55 relates to in its projects called Sputnik and Snail Shell. N55 believes in the need for free exchange of technological know-how. Construction companies and the related industry personify the unnecessary concentration of power. This is why the designers do not request fees for information to be used by the future tenants. They do not wish to protect their designs with patents in belief that this would restrict access to freedom and become yet another way of undesirable 'concentration of power'. The instructions for building the Spaceframe or the Snail Shell are accessible free of charge on the Internet. As opposed to other prefabricated homes and products, N55 designs are not for sale.”