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ARCH 793B: Architecture Directed Design Research Gallery: The sense of purposefulness in Architecture

Plug-Ins for a Future Building Typology

For my thesis, I created a new building typology for a plausible near-future time period, using the plug-in systems theorized in Archigram’s Plug-In City. I did this by highlighting the plug-in connection, instead of obscuring it; highlighting the plug-in connection at three different scales – that of the initial plug-in to the structural core building, the plug-in unit to another plug-in unit, and the plug-in unit to the interior plug-in unit; and by maintaining the original ethos of plug-in architecture — mobility, changeability, and indeterminacy. I did this through developing my own theory of “plug-in-ability” which dictated the design in terms of purposefulness and the derived meaningfulness which is understood from the intrinsic purposefulness of the design.