The Story of Trailer and It's Actors; As a Mobile Home Case _ Nur Gülgör Thesis

3. Wallis, A. D. (1997, June 19). Wheel Estate: The
Rise and Decline of Mobile Homes. https://doi.
org/10.1604/9780801856419
In the year 2020, a mass-produced micro house known as “Volu-te” was
designed by Mef University’s Architectural Design Master’s AAP (Alternative
Architectural Practices) students, including myself. Volu-te is a transportable
temporary living space with minimal dimensions and functions that can meet
a person’s basic daily needs. The design and usage story of Volu-te emerged
as a response to a current debate regarding the extent to which we use our
homes in this digital and mobile era, and whether a permanent home is
truly necessary. This inquiry leads to the question of whether the “home”
that Després speaks of can be created regardless of location, and whether
such spaces have been created before, as well as the necessary requirements
for their creation. This research delves into trailers as the closest example to
understand this question. Volu-te and trailers share similarities in that they
are both mass-produced, small, transportable, and temporary.
This thesis evaluates the life periods of trailers in a sociological and
industrial context and divides their transformation into four sections. These
sections are limited solely to the trailer industry and trailer life in America,
where trailers were first introduced. Therefore, the transformation of mobile
homes can be seen from past to present on a wider scale. Each chapter is
examined in detail regarding the trailer’s relationship with the user, the
sociological environment, and social crises. At the end of the study, the trailer
user groups of the period are defined. Some groups live temporarily in trailers,
while others live in them permanently. Some groups refer to trailers as their
home, while for others, they are holiday or secondary homes. Over time, these
usage habits change due to various push factors, leading to transformations
in the trailer industry. It is not possible to describe this transformation as a
cycle or a linear change, as various actors shape the evolution of trailers. In
the second chapter, the actors involved in the transformation of trailers are
explored with reference to the first chapter.
The trailer’s flexible design and other potentials have rendered it
adaptable to numerous effects. In this context, Dina Smith has defined the
trailer as an “adaptive system.” The features that make it adaptable are
its “light/portable design, collage of vehicular and house-like design, its
applique form which consists of loose meaning and rapidly introduced and
recycled innovations, its constant circulation as mobility, transformability,
and disposability, its pluralism as well as individuality, and its inventiveness
and adaptability categorically: it changes function, even name, according to
need.” 3 The trailer’s transiency is due not only to its mobility but also to its
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