Milton Keynes: Rural Technotopia

LogPlug, David Greene (Archigram), 1969

Leisure in Milton Keynes, Philip Castle, 1971

Early Landscape Study, Milton Keynes Development Corporation (Early 1970s)

As the UKs last and largest New Town Milton Keynes

develop products, scenarios or electronics which explore the following themes

has a rich set of ideas embedded in its plan. It aspired

and what they could mean in a Milton Keynes of the near future:

to technological sophistication and effortless mobility,

and tied it to an ambition of blending into the land-

1. Hybridising technologies of the city with nature or the landscape.

scape, aligning to the principle of no building higher

2. Extending and exploring the idea of Milton Keynes as a proto-

than the tallest tree. I think this vision offers a radical

alternative to how we currently think about urban life and
its problems.

type for a future leisure society.

3. Through technological experimentation; exploring the idea of
free citizenship as a potential challenge to the freedoms of
speculative finance and consumption which have come to domi-

I am a student of Design Interactions at the Royal Col-

nate life in the UK.

lege of Art. As part of my thesis project I an interested

in revisiting the ideals Milton Keynes was conceived

I will be looking for interested collaborators during December 2014 and

around and asking how they might be reinterpretated

January 2015, with my project due for completion in June. If you would be

in the near future. I am seeking to collaborate with

interested in discussing the project with me please contact me on:

programmers, makers and technologists who also live

james.sunderland@network.rca.ac.uk. A blog for the project is developing

or work in Milton Keynes. I would like to collaborate to

here: http://servicescape.tumblr.com/