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Lost in Translation by Studio Makkink & Bey

Interieur 2012: Studio Makkink & Bey built a house of scaffolding and stairs to represent the transient, roaming lifestyle of the future as their contribution to the Future Primitives series at last month's Interieur design biennale in Kortrijk, Belgium.

Lost in Translation by Studio Makkink and Bey

Studio Makkink & Bey created the installation, called Lost in Translation, to reflect a future in which we are constantly moving and travelling, spending less time in one place and more time passing through infrastructure like roads and airports.

Lost in Translation by Studio Makkink and Bey

As we increasingly work on trains, sleep on aeroplanes and keep our belongings in storage, being in motion has become more like being at home, the designers explained. "What happens if we say that being on the road does not exist anymore and lost in translation is our new existence?" Bey said to Dezeen. "If being on the road is our new interior, what will then be called exterior? What will be thought of as home and property?"

Lost in Translation by Studio Makkink and Bey

"Maybe the stairs will be the new living room, on which you can store and sit but also watch a movie or the internet with 50 shared friends," he added.

Lost in Translation by Studio Makkink and Bey

Positing that future living will be take place in moving landscapes, the designers chose to project a series of one-minute movies inside the structure. "One minute, because that is the best timespan for moving viewers," said Bey. The selected movies were first presented at The World One Minutes exhibition in Beijing in 2008.

Lost in Translation by Studio Makkink and Bey

Lost in Translation was one of several installations in the Future Primitives series at Interieur this year – we reported on a mechanical installation that ripples like water and an illusory arcade of gothic arches produced by beams of light.

Lost in Translation by Studio Makkink and Bey

We also reported on Ross Lovegrove's concept car designed to provoke an instinctive response and Greg Lynn's prototype vehicle for compact living, as well as Muller Van Severen's collection of furniture with leather deckchair seats.

Lost in Translation by Studio Makkink and Bey

Other projects by Studio Makkink & Bey we've featured on Dezeen include household appliances built into wooden packing crates and an installation of pieces made from sugar and silver.

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Here's some more information from the designers:


Future Primitives, Interieur Kortrijk, 2012
Lost in Translation, Studio Makkink & Bey

The exhibition design Lost In Translation shows industrial materials that become the frame of a house, and self-build becomes the norm. Domesticity is detached from brick and mortar or the value of a mortgage, but now deals with the social relations between members of temporary groups and nomadic aspects of mobility.

What if in transit no longer exists and on the way is a place itself? We would reside in our well developed infrastructures that perform as our living. We might get lost in translation, while living privately in public. In this future primitive, how would we dwell, what would we store? We work while blurred landscapes pass by, we sleep at 12,000 metres in flight and the attic moved into big yellow self-storage boxes along the highway. Home is where the heart is.