Last week, the courtyard of the University of Southern California (USC) architecture school served as a parking lot for two fascinating pieces of auto/architecture by architects Jennifer Siegal and Mark Mack. Siegal’s piece, Aero, is composed of a small Taylor-Dunn electric truck attached to an unfolding and cantilevered unit load device, wrapped with sail material, that can be used for meetings and even lodging. Mack’s, entitled S/LMP, combines a towing trailer with a DJ booth, a scissor lift, kitchen, and two shrink-wrapped clamshell covers that look like a giant takeout container.

They are part of a traveling show, Truck-A-Tecture, that combines prefabricated architectural solutions with the mobile culture of trucking (food trucks, mobile homes, big rigs, etc). The vision, say the creators, is one of “efficient and sustainable housing” combined with “the reality of nomadic contemporary lifestyles.”

Siegal calls the hybrid solutions “industrial upscaling,” suggesting new portable architecture uses for our increasingly mobile society. Other participants besides Siegal and Mack include Jeff Day and Wes Jones, who developed an inflatable shelter and a solar paneled prefab R/V, respectively. The show appeared at Kaneko, an art center in Omaha, Nebraska, last summer. Look for Truck-A-Tecture in other venues soon.