M AKING PUBLIC SPACES INHABITABLE He is currently working on the first module for and useful to anybody is the goal of N55, a new system called Micro Dwellings, a low-cost, an artistic effort based in Denmark that easy-to-build, amphibious modular house designed has created functional art for over a decade. N55 to function on both land and water (floating or sub-creates inexpensive, modular, portable structures. merged). The modular Spaceframe is a reconfigu-Installations have included floating platforms and rable, easy-to-build, low-maintenance living space living structures, urban-farming plant modules and structure. Other projects include a Floating Platform floating fish farms, and even a mobile bar. At the that can support these Spaceframe buildings, and core of N55’s values is the idea of art as part of a Snail Shell System that resembles a giant plastic everyday life. shell-like wheel and lets people “move around,
Originally a collective of a dozen artists living, change their whereabouts, and live in various envi-working, and exhibiting together, N55 was later pared ronments.” Various cramped environments anyway. down to the husband-wife team of Ion Sørvin and Many of N55’s projects are about demonstrating Ingvil Hareide Aarbakke. With the passing away of his the minimum space and materials needed for basic wife last year, N55 is now carried on solely by Sørvin. survival and producing them easily and cheaply.
Photography by N55
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