Exhibitor: The Why Factory, MVRDV
Have you ever dreamed of sleeping suspended high in the air? Have you ever dreamed of sleeping in a bed with a view over the rooftops of the whole city? How would it feel to sleep inside a vertical hanging garden? What if your room was made of stairs? Would you dare to sleep in a room that was a billboard? How would it feel to sleep in a room with a skylight? Or inside a shimmering grotto? What is your dream room?
Based on the hypothesis of maximum density and maximum desire fulfilment, The (W)ego installation explores the potential of desire-based design on an extreme scale. What can the city become when it fits not program or zoning requirements, but the aspirations of the users?
The (W)egoinstallation is part of the Egocity research being conducted by The Why Factory that investigates participatory processes applied to lodging. The life-size (W)ego installation allows visitors to taste what it could be to create and experience the accommodation of their dreams. Each of the roomsin the installationare designed to suggest different desires for habitation: the climber who wants to perch up high, the artist whose room is their canvas. This assortment is simply a suggestion that hints at the variety of possibilities that this model makes possible.
The self-determining nature of the (W)egocity idea allows users to create their own spaces, but by definition requires negotiation between the sometimes competing desires. In (W)egocity, users realise the design of their units as a result of such negotiation in the fairest possible way.
While the (W)ego installation offers these ideas at the scale of a building, it broadly proposes a new urban model whose generative points belongs entirely to the users. It aspires to shape a shared and evolving dream in the midst of a dense urban environment; a living mosaic that contains an unlimited variety of solutions, each as unique as the person who creates them.
