Entires: A Stable Democracy

ENTRANT
Niall Gallacher & Jordan Hodgson

EXPLANATION OF IDEA
The Honourable Member?
The expenses scandal is just the latest brush to tar the image of the Member of Parliament. A role that should be seen as the embodi­ment of distinguished integrity has instead come to seem dull and dishonourable, populated by bureaucrats too often hidden behind darkened car windows or administrative redacts. Likewise, the act of traveling across the country to convene at Parliament has lost its significance in the public imagination, and now, in the wake of the Great Second Home Swindle, not even the constitu­ency home-cum-hide-out remains off limits to media scrutiny of the fitness-for-purpose of the modern MP.

All told, a renovation is in order—to re-establish a fitting public profile, to streamline the expenses lifestyle and to remove the prob­lem of the static second home—and all on a shoe-string budget. Our proposal takes an old idea and reinvents it as a thoroughly 21st century solution - a home-from-home, mobile office, campaign wagon and civic emblem all harnessed together under the cost-effective and ecological reins of old-fashioned British horse power.

The Constituency Carriage
The proposal does away with the second home and in its place provides the RHoMPER (Right Honourable Mobile Parlia­mentary Engagement Resource) as an instant extension to the candidate's existing home, better equipping it for the life of an Honourable Member. From here, the RHoMPER maybe deployed locally as a mobile office (no more controversial sub-lets), a drop-in constituency consultation suite or a low-carbon campaign bandwagon.
Propriety and trust-worthiness come as standard: classed as a vehicle rather than a residence and resplendent with inte­grated fixtures and fittings, the RHoMPER removes the temptation of the tax rouse or the lavish interior redesign.
When London calls, the horse-drawn-home passes through its constituency streets, elevating the civic significance of the journey to the capital, and on to the train station where a new piece of rolling stock, added to any existing train service, transports Member, Horse and Home in appropriate style.
The design of the RHoMPER is a crossbreed of ceremonial and functional, of old and new, intended to best serve the complex demands faced by today's Honourable Member.

The Trailer Palace of Westminster
At Westminster, the RHoMPERs are accommodated in a grand 'trailer park', a layered landscape that expresses the confluence of representatives from across the nations. Spiraling across Parliament Square, New Palace Yard and the Palace itself, this high-rise of mobile homes stands as a kind of living monu­ment, open and interleaved, against the enclosed and exclusive nature of the existing political compound.
Inhabitation of the Trailer Palace is unreserved, non-hierarchi­cal and non-partisan, with spaces occupied or vacated by the comings and goings of the Members. Over time territories may form, the wagons may be circled according to allegiance, but with each arrival or departure the pieces must be moved. This temporary and variable system celebrates change and interac­tion ahead of the fixed and confrontational layout notorious of the House of Commons itself.
With the RHoMPER parked and the horse unbridled, the Member can take full advantage of their home-from-home, bomb-proof and beautiful. At street level, a new ceremonial gateway fuses security apparatus with equine iconography and marks the advent of this new way of life for the Right Honour­able Member of Parliament.