Ambassador Winy Maas curates with The Why Factory (W)ego: The Future City is Flexible. The installation will be open to the public every day at Markt Square, Eindhoven between 21-29 October 2017
20th October 2017, Rotterdam - 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? “Based on the hypothesis that the maximum density could be equal to the maximum of desires, this research conducted by the Why Factory explores the potentials of negotiation in dense context,” says Winy Maas. “Through gaming and other tools, Wego explores participatory design processes to model the competing desires and egos of each resident in the fairest possible way.”
"The rooms of the (W) EGO hotel of DDW ambassador Winy Maas rearrange themselves based on the number of visitors and their needs. The project is an excellent example of flexible design, and therefore fits perfectly with the DDW theme STRETCH!" Martijn Paulen, director of Dutch Design Foundation (organizer Dutch Design Week).
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 each other. How to defend your ideals? Users start to work with and around each other 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.
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.
Dutch Design Week takes place between 21 - 29 October and for more information, tickets and how to visit please check the website here
MVRDV was set up in 1993 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. MVRDV engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A research-based and highly collaborative design method engages experts from all fields, clients and stakeholders in the creative process.The results are exemplary and outspoken buildings, urban plans, studies and objects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.Early projects by the office, such as the headquarters for the Dutch Public Broadcaster VPRO and WoZoCo housing for the elderly in Amsterdam lead to international acclaim. MVRDV develops its work in a conceptual way in which the changing conditions are visualised and discussed through designs, sometimes literally through the design and construction of a diagram. The office continues to pursue its fascination for and methodical research on density using a method of shaping space using the complex amounts of data that accompany contemporary building and design processes.The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. 200 architects, designers and other staff development projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involve rigorous technical and creative investigation.