LOT-EK: Mobile Dwelling Unit

LOT-EK: MDU challenged conventionally accepted notions of domestic space. The architecture practice’s founding partners Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano have earned a reputation for their transformational approach to industrial and infrastructural objects. With the MDU, LOT-EK took mobility as a central tenet—a radical notion for future living informed by the environment, technology, and the movement of global capital. The ubiquitous shipping container—a by-product of globalization that litters the industrial landscape—became a standard module for living and working. Equipped with a series of expandable and contractable volumes each dedicated to a specific function, the MDU transforms into a complete living unit. When traveling, the volumes retract to accommodate worldwide standard shipping, ready to move to the nomadic dweller’s next destination. The MDU travelled from the University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara to Walker Art Center and the Whitney Museum of American Art.