We Are Here

A blueprint for incorporating self-driving technologies into the architecture of Los Angeles.

With Self-Driving Cars now roaming the streets of Los Angeles, the question arises: without a steering wheel, is it still a car? Or is it architecture? This thesis imagines the self-driving car as a room in motion. Through robotic manipulation, docking interfaces, and adaptive configurations, the autonomous vehicle becomes a living module. Capable of docking, detaching, and transitioning between architectures. More than modularity it proposes a new form of dwelling, one that is temporary, intimate, and always in flux. Where earlier proposals envision change within fixed megastructures, this project is a mobile architecture. One that detaches, migrates and reintegrates. Instead of consolidating in a singular structure, it disperses architecture across a scattered urban network. In this model mobility is not transitional, but a new condition of dwelling.

The Entry Sequence

A short story by Noah K.

1. Handshake

Ding!

You wake in your Mobile Architecture Unit AKA (OTTO), drifting down the LA freeway. Outside: other units are cruising, some asleep, some working, some glowing with video games.

You’ve got 20 minutes. Seong and Angel are finalizing the prototype. Investors are on their way. Burgers later at Irv’s.

The tower rises ahead, a server of rooms above traffic. The docking arm reaches down, clamps, lifts, rotates.

Not just mechanics but an architectural handshake.

The wall becomes the floor. Space doubles.

Clunk. Bang. Docked.. You drop your phone

The door drops. Seong and Angel are grinning. “It works,” they say.

2. The Pitch

“No boardroom,” says the investor. “Show us how it moves.”

Everyone piles into the unit. On the road again.

The space is intimate and intense. too close for comfort. No exits. Just ideas and body heat.

The pitch unfolds. Renderings. Timelines. Nervous hands.

Then—a soda spills. Short-circuits the screen. Silence. Everyone looks around.