Designer Eduardo McIntosh has created Autonomous Living Units to explore concepts of contemporary architecture and the housing crisis. The Autonomous Living Units is designed to have all the comforts of home in a self-contained chair.
In his own words, Eduardo McIntosh explains the project:
Autonomous Living Units is a satirical project that tries to over stress the contradictions of the contemporary architectural scene in which luxury production is created for few, whilst basic needs are neglected to many. The essence of the project is to show the consequence of current practices, much like an anti-smoking ad showing the damaging effect of cigarettes.
At face value the project stands at the intersection of the current housing crisis, the tendency of people in developed countries to live on their own and the trend of turning architecture into a consumer product. The project poses a scenario in which living units (homes) have evolved into the most minimal yet visually alluring objects that can still provide for the basic needs of the 21st century human being. Because of the morphing of architecture into furniture, the Living Units could be inserted in derelict areas and ruined housing projects.
Nevertheless, at a deeper level, the project doesn’t try to morph architecture into furniture (as its obvious that the feasibility of such a project in the ‘real’ world is nonexistent) but instead it tries to explore the possibilities of using not-to-be-built architecture (or projects meant to be projects) as a vehicle for spreading ideas of social critique. The danger of ‘building’ or enacting ideas in the physical world is that, as Aldo Rossi states: “In a certain sense, there is no such thing as buildings that are politically ‘opposed’ (to the status quo), since the ones that are realized are always those of the dominant class”.
The project was exhibited among others at the d3 Gallery in New York for the "Future Cities: Past, Present" exhibition in April 2009.
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