(W)ego | MVRDV

Ambassador Winy Maas at Dutch Design Week 2017 curates with The Why Factory
What: Installation
Where: Markt Square
When: Open throughout Dutch Design Week

The future city is flexible. Have you ever dreamed of sleeping suspended high in the air? 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? Or inside a shimmering grotto? What is your dream room?
In this installation, nine rooms are made to fulfil these idealistic but egoistic perspectives in a limited space. When confronted with the dreams of others, users must learn to negotiate with eachother. How to defend your ideals? Users start to work with and around eachother and, somehow, together create something that is even nicer. And with the surrounding intrusions and negotiations, one begins to feel that something interesting is happening ‘next door.’ Why not visit your neighbour? Thus, Ego becomes Wego.
The (W)ego installation represents a frozen moment in the living and flexible (W)ego vision. In (W)ego a research platform from The Why Factory, future urban dwellings are capable of adapting in real time to the users’ needs. This vision is detailed in a film that plays in one of the rooms of (W)ego.
(W)ego shows that evolutionary and flexible architecture is possible. That the most perfect situation can be achieved at every moment, leading to an even more optimal use of our limited urban space.

DUTCH DESIGN WEEK: THE FUTURE CITY IS WONDERFUL

Imagine a scenario where Architecture exchanges metaphors with Science, and in doing so, a shift in perspective occurs that allows for multiple ways to create future visions. As an ambassador of Dutch Design Week 2017, Winy Maas curates with MVRDV, The Why Factory, Gemeente Eindhoven, TU Eindhoven and Dutch Design Week four interventions exploring the future of cities. Products of the future city in The Future City is Wide by The Why Factory, Copy Paste, a bad ass guide for becoming a Starchitect, (W)ego, a 9 meter high, habitable installation and ICI Eindhoven: Here we come about the future of the city of Eindhoven, with workshops on the question: What do the Eindhovenaars want?

In a world experiencing dramatic climate change, declining resources, huge differences in income, extensive political/social disagreement, rapid population growth, substantial consumption of space, Design disciplines must work on these issues and provide solutions. What products can facilitate this enterprise? And what is the future city they can create? The future city is many things. Endless possibilities lie before us, too many to visualize or even count. The interventions at Dutch Design Week investigate just a few of these futures but we have already begun to explore more.

The Future City is Wide

How much can we dream for the future city? (What are the limits of possibility in the future city?)

The Future City has Memories

How can we use the architecture of the present to make better architecture in the future?

The Future City is Flexible

How can we negotiate our own architectures of desire?

The Future City is Intimate

How can the city itself encourage social connection?

The Future City is Green

What is the green city of the future?

The Future City is Up

What new perspectives can our roofscapes offer?

The Future City doesn’t need Energy

What happens in a city without energy?

The Future City is Transparent

How can we share our experience of the city with everyone?        

The Future City is Festive

How can we dance with our cities?

The Future City is Science Fiction (originally: The Future City is There!)

What do we need to do to make these future cities possible?         

The Future City is Wonderful

The installations have been made possible with help from many sponsors including De Meeuw, Dutch Design Week, Gemeente Eindhoven, Van Beek Art Supplies, TU Delft, TU Eindhoven and Keeper Development.