Wei-Ke Cheng

Humans have forever been fascinated by space exploration and have prepared for off-earth settlement. For example, 2005 Biosphere 2 (Arizona, USA), 2011 Mars-500 (Moscow, Russia), 2019 Lunar outpost (Moon, Earth) and 2022 Mars mission (Mars, Solar system) suggest that humans may one day leave Earth and immigrate somewhere else in outer space. More than some techno-utopian fantasy it might be that humans instead long for another world - one where they can start anew. In order to start anew, one must leave behind nature, memory, references and venture into the unknown in a high tech space-ship which only supports basic life functions. Architecture in this new world requires that we leave the old behind and start anew - making a little go along way. 

The proposal of “Nomadic Bed” is a 20,000m2 nomadic space for 200 households located in the centre of Reykjavik. To travel to the New World the project proposes not to leave earth, but to leave (modern) architecture behind and propose a new form of life without types, rooms, doors, facades, floors, walls, and therefore references and even time. The giant bed is a kind of tissue for living made entirely of steel and PVC pipes that are simultaneous structure and circulate geothermal water for warmth. They are also coated in materials which convert heat to light and illuminate the space with a soft glow in the long hours of winter darkness. Less dense areas of the piping allow winds to freely ventilate the bed large interiors while more dense piping tissue created fibre at a small enough scale for walking and sleeping on. 

Because the Nomadic Bed has no doors, no walls and no rooms it has no hierarchical order, because it has no walls it has no memories, and because it has no floors it can have no furniture or objects. One finds it ridiculous to territorialize parts of the bed, and after one generation has forgotten that privacy is a concept. During the coldest and harshest months of the long winter, the bed is a warm tissue glowing in the long hours of darkness, clouds of fibers which seem to dissolve any perception of parts to whole.