'Clothing for living in-or if it wasn't for my Suitaloon I would have to buy a house.'
Suitaloon is an inflatable, nomadic house conceived to be worn as a suit providing a living envelope whenever and wherever desired. It extends Archigram's interest in mobile architecture, expressed in earlier projects such as Walking City. Fitting the body like clothes, the Suitaloon is a reductive dwelling that reduces the components and support systems needed to sustain an entire community down to the necessities for supporting a single individual. The Suitaloon was designed to be a complementary component of the Cushicle.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelspiderwebb/
Mike Webb's prophetic 1960's project confronts a number of issues that designers and architects still contend with. On an immediate level it speaks or ergonomics, i.e the relationship/coordination of devices and the human form, and the bodies interaction with the 'built' or 'constructed' environment. It also contests ideas of the human forms interaction of space, and the 'anthropologies of space' connoted by Edward T Hall coincidently around the same time. More pertinently perhaps, and indeed prophetically, it alludes to man's relationship-come-reliance on technology exemplifying McLuhan's 'extensions of Man' ideas. A Vicarious Prosthesis.......
'The space suit could be identified as a minimal house. In the previous Cushicle, the environment for the rider was provided by the Cushicle-a mechanism like car. In this project the suit itself provides all the necessary services, the [optional] Cushicle being the source of (a) movement, (b) a larger envelope than the suit can provide, (c) power. Each suit has a plug serving a similar function to the key to your front door. You can plug into your friend and you will both be in one envelope, or you can plug into any envelope, stepping out of your suit which is left clipped on to the outside ready to step into when you leave. The plug also serves as a means of connecting envelopes together to form larger spaces. Various models of Cushicle envelope and suit would of course be available ranging from super sports to family models.'
Mike Webb Photostream
Mike Webb, Suitaloon, 1968
Mike Webb, Cushicle Chassis with Undeployed Suitaloon, 1968
Mike Webb, Cushicle, 1968
Mike Webb, Cushicle, 1967
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