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Mattingly’s Flock Houses are a cross between a tent and geodesic dome [2], and are currently camped out in a field near the Bowling Green subway station at Battery Park. The orb-like structures were designed to exist on their own, or be merged with other Flock Houses, a reaction to the reimagined future of urban space [3]. With the rise of the world population, Mattingly imagines a time when urban growth will spiral out of control, and thus the modular and adjustable Flock Houses seem to be a viable solution.
The pod-like Flock Houses can go beyond attaching to one another – they can attach themselves to city buildings, siphoning their heat, utilities or energy like a parasite [4]. The Flock Houses can also subsist on their own, collecting rain water, growing a canopy of edible plants [5], and deriving power from solar panels and human sources.
But Mattingly doesn’t intend for the Flock Houses to be completely autonomous- with a stone soup mentality [6], each Flock House benefits by joining with the next and sharing resources- a lesson Mattingly hopes the future will bring.
To practice what she preaches, Mattingly has lived in a Flock House herself, and others have used them as studios under the Manhattan Bridge [7], before they were transported to Battery Park to appear as part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s River to River Festival.
+Mary Mattingly [8]< + River to River Festival [9]/big>
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