Proposal for a shopping centre in St Peter’s Gate, Nottingham, with ‘shared’ permanent shop and office buildings and ‘expendable’ mobile shop units serviced and removed by cranes and on-site railway.

In the various studies that built up the total [Plug-in City] project, one can trace the succession of priorities that are gradually overlaid, and one can see how the sections evolved. The Nottingham project was a proposal for shopping, but the problems of frequent servicing and the unit replacement were complementary. A major part of the Plug-In proposition already existed. With the craneway running along the viaduct and a service tunnel system, it is only a short step to the incorporation of housing elements.

Peter Cook

Archigram, Edited by Peter Cook, Warren Chalk, Dennis Crompton, 

David Greene, Ron Herron & Mike Webb, 1972

[reprinted New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999]