Studio Orta

Reflection on man’s relationship to the environment in which he lives is central to the research of Lucy and Jorge Orta. The temporary architectures they design to be easily transported and installed in any context not only physically define the territory of the community, but are also a metaphor of social relations. In this sphere, the artists have invented and produced the Connector Mobile Village, a system of modular, flexible structures that can form configurations and expand according to the needs of the community. The artists describe the project, created to grant identity and value to the group, as “a village ready to accommodate a potentially infinite number of persons”. Each individual unit can be connected to others in different compositions to form complex structures capable of serving larger numbers of people and performing different residential, educational and social functions. While facilitating cooperation among individuals, the work also encourages both independence and interdependence. Thanks to the nature of the structures, each individual has the possibility of connecting to or disconnecting from the sequence. The modular configuration permits preservation of identity and individuality, generating a settlement composed of private, personal spaces, joined in a homogeneous whole.