Architecture needs to adapt to the changing nomadic nature of society with architecture that is portable and transient.
Today’s society has reverted back to the nomadic culture of our early ancestors, with changing economic, social, cultural, and environmental conditions that require re-transplanting to new environments. While the American lifestyle has become more mobile, our inhabitable environments remain stationary. This is no longer possible in our global, dispersed, portable world and architecture must respond.
In 2008, more than 10 million Americans moved from one county to another1, with almost 2 million of this group moving to different regions of the United States.2 The average American moves 11.7 times in a lifetime, and often moves every 5 years.3 This type of movement pattern most often means moving to a new home or apartment that is stationary but impermanent, in the fact they are often demolished within a 50 year lifecycle to make room for new buildings. With this constantly transient lifestyle, why can’t our habitable dwelling move with us in order to create a sense of permanence within our impermanent environments we move to. Great precedents exist from ancient times and nomadic cultures that still exist today, who have developed design patterns over thousands of generations to support the transient lifestyle. The economic, flexible, and lightweight qualities of this architecture can be adapted today with our advances in technology to provide shelter for today’s transient society. In such a way, the portable architecture necessary can be less parasitic and respond thoughtfully to changing ecologies. Because portable architecture takes into account movability, the value of these structures is in the minimal destruction it leaves behind. The successful application of portable architecture will require special attention to tectonic, spatial, and material characteristics that align with the needs of the current nomadic society of today.
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