Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe - Motopia

Utopia was a term coined in 1516 by Thomas More. Originally an imaginary other-world, first represented with a map and diagram of an island describing More’s ideal spaces, politics and ethics The word Utopia was derived from Greek οὐ and τόπος, meaning “no-place”, and meant any non-existent, or imaginary, society.

Geoffrey Jellicoe developed More’s Utopia in 1959,  replacing the 'no' with 'mo' linking to the design's car-related function as well as its progressive mobility and modernist style.  The design was a revolutionary and singular proposal for a new town theoretically situated north of Staines-upon-Thames in Surrey where the River Colne and Themes confluence. 

Motopia was based on a grid, with five-story residential blocks and a rotunda at each lattice intersection. Originally inspired by Le Corbusier’s residential piloti-raised blocks, Jellicoe wanted his proposal to “lie lightly upon the natural landscape”, offering a mix of both fertile agriculture, hardwood forests, and pleasure parks interspersed with canals, while still being dotted with schools, clubs and restaurants. Jellicoe also cited Bedford Square as inspiration for Motopia’s gridded form of apartments. With features dual-aspect views over reinterpreted Georgian squares. The most radical element of Motopia was its raised roads. Lying above all the architecture on a “roof road” grid, with roundabouts atop each rotunda, and car parking one level lower.

 
While personally, I find the ordered nature of the layout far too formal for an enjoyable human residential area, I admire the intended balance between built and green/blue space. Motopia is not my chosen utopia, however, I prefer it significantly to the layout of a post-industrial city with rampant infill-related problems.  Jellicoe's design retains some of the natural character of the site it's based on and doesn't aim to heavily carve away at the existing landform. From a modern perspective, I can see the traces of current sustainable design ideologies in the proposed work, and some of the proposals like elevated roads, hold up to today's planning ideas.