XYZ CARGO MOBILE OFFICE
 XYZ CARGO MOBILE OFFICE, 2023/2024 |
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Introduction:
The XYZ CARGO MOBILE OFFICE makes it possible to do office work wherever you want. Persons can choose a nice new place to work every day, both inside and outside the city. The best views are available without paying high rents. The XYZ CARGO MOBILE OFFICE provides the necessary shelter, table, lights and seating as well as solar power for computers and phones. Two MOBILE OFFICEs can be placed opposite each other for a meeting, or several can be placed in a circle. A toilet and running water can be fitted in the seat. In cold climates, XYZ CARGO MOBILE OFFICEs can be arranged so that a warehouse, or similar large building, is used by a collective of MOBILE OFFICE offices.
Construction:
Background:
In most cities of the world, the most brutal form of capitalism prevails. larger and larger concentrations of power in the form of international capital have effectively taken over our cities. Urban planning and political decisions concerning our cities, have been reduced to a mechanism that serves large concentrations of power and facilitates the process of exploiting persons basic needs for housing and workspaces for profit. Less wealthy people are driven away from the attractive parts of cities and sometimes out of the city by raising prices. New areas are taken over by processes such as gentrification, where artists and other people are first used to make an area attractive and then evicted afterwards. No one in a local city can compete with large international investment firms and other concentrations of capital. They take over entire neighbourhoods and suck the life out of the city and its people with fake renovations and rent increase.
Reclaim the city - DIY urban planning:
A potential revolution is possible if we reclaim the cities. By introducing some simple rules we could change the way cities develop: We could decide to set a limit on the number of square meters that a person has available to live on. We could set a profit limit on people’s basic needs, including the need to have a home and a place to work. We could introduce a limit on the amount of personal wealth allowed. We could prevent international corporations from owning our homes and workplaces. We could set a limit on the allowable size of companies. Instead of competing with each other, we could cooperate and try to figure out how to create a good socially and environmentally sustainable life in the city? N55 suggests that we find a different approach to urban planning, respect conditions for description, and take into consideration what is right and wrong. Intelligent urban design would require the design of systems that adjust themselves to the persons who live in them. Unlike a top-down master plan, such systems gradually dissolve themselves as the inhabitants take over and transform their city according to their needs and desires. Based on collaboration and diversity, intelligently created cities acknowledge that we are social beings needing space for being different. It is possible to let the growth of the city be framed by simple rules, which allows people to freely develop their own environments and systems. N55 propose a critical approach to city design by daring to give the inhabitants real and meaningful influence on the form and function of their city, and by using friendly technologies, which allows our urban environment to exist in symbiosis with our planet rather than as a parasite. XYZ CARGO MOBILE OFFICE can be seen as part of N55’s ongoing research aiming to find new ways of using public space while respecting persons and local communities. An attempt to find ways of living, with as small concentrations of power as possible.
By N55/ ion Sørvin and Till Wolfer
Thanks to:
Pia Hovi
Kelly Talcott
Conor Coughland
Published by N55 and Västra Nylands museum.
Supported by Albert de la Chapelle Art Foundation.
ISBN: 978-951-8953-19-0
March 2023 3