A Master Plan on Wheels

Architizer News

A Master Plan on Wheels

January 6, 2011

One of OMA’s very first projects, in 1987, was a masterplan for Ville Nouvelle Melun Senart outside of Paris. The project made one huge assumption: all masterplans are either flawed or carried out incorrectly. So, OMA decided to ‘plan’ only what would be left empty. Whatever sections of the landscape they found most beautiful or valuable, they sectioned off as undeveloped zones. The rest, they said, would develop as the city would have it. They wrote, “nothingness may be the last subject of plausible certainties.”

OMA’s Ville Nouvelle Melun Senart masterplan, (c) OMA.

A project uploaded today to Architizer reminded us of the Melun Senart project – taken a few steps further. Specifically, Swedish team Jägnefält Milton declined to plan any stationary elements at all – instead proposing a mobile city.

“Switching City” is the result of a competition the town of Åndalsnes, Norway held for a new masterplan. Announced as the third-place winners last friday, Jägnefält Milton‘s “Tarkovsky-esque” proposal would utilize pre-existing railways to bring a set of public programs to the city – including a hotel, concert hall, and public bath.

Wrote principle Carl Jägnefält: ”We are really happy that the jury took our proposal serious, it’s not only a good proposal which we are very proud of, it’s also fully doable.”