STRUCTURES : Road Architecture : A better acronym than RV might be MDUs--Mobile Domestic Units.

Come summertime, you find them rolling down the highway with increasing frequency, these shining examples of rolling architecture.

The driver mans the wheel, one eye on the map and one on the wide-open road. Passengers enjoy the view, or walk back to the kitchen to get something out of the microwave. Or settle back into the recliner. Or shower up. Or head down the hall to nap in the queen-size bed.

The comforts of home: Don’t leave home without ‘em.

This being a column on architecture, the patient reader might be wondering: How do RVs fit in? Architecture is defined (in the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary) as “the art or science of building or constructing edifices of any kind for human use.” RVs are edifices without the fixity of structures with foundations and permanent addresses.

Actually, the term Recreational Vehicle may be a misnomer to some of the most ardent believers, for whom a better acronym might be MDUs--Mobile Domestic Units. The challenge in RV design has been to mimic, with ever-greater precision, home interiors. Illusionism is the mandate. A vehicle is not a vehicle.

The process is similar to the world of digital sampling in music, in which acoustic instruments are replicated for easy storage and use in synthesizers.

Step inside one of these movable domiciles and you find almost all the amenities, in miniature, of finer condos. Wood paneling and wall-to-wall carpets codify homeyness. Tile flooring often defines the “kitchen” space. Mirrors, drawers and pantries add to a sense of cozy domesticity.

A quick trip through the “house”--allot about 15 seconds or so--reveals a seamless succession of conventional domestic spaces. Here’s the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom, the master bedroom. The only anomaly is the driver’s seat.

RVs operate from the premise that home is a transportable proposition. You can take it with you, on the road, that is.

Contradictions and ironies abound in the world of RVs. A promotional pamphlet for one bus-size unit promises that the proud owners will be “Roughing it in style!”

They come armed with names evoking adventure and escape, names like Southwind, Wilderness, Driftwood, Nomad, Safari, and, of course, the almighty Winnebago. And let’s not forget Komfort.

Since the earliest days of the motor vehicle--long before the self-enclosed RV caught on in the ‘60s--motorists had been roughing it in style. People concocted various trailer-like attachments and contraptions, often in the back yard.

J. Paul Getty manufactured a commercially available trailer made from scrap metal from his aircraft company.

But it is the name Wally Byams that dominates all others and produces quiet awe in the ranks of recreational vehicular types. In the 1936, Byams--a kind of guru/pioneer, designed the silver aluminum bubble-on-wheels known as the Airstream.

The Airstream, with its streamlined and bracing simplicity, still serves as a symbol of all-American design. It is given a reverent two-page tribute in Richard Sexton’s book “American Style.” Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny used its image, fittingly, for the cover of his album “American Garage.”

More a visionary than a mere entrepreneur, Byams went one step further and formed Airstream Caravans that toured the nation and such far-flung ports as Egypt. His great American dream of encircling a pyramid with Airstreams was never realized.

Present-day RVs depart sharply from the Airstream paradigm. The gleaming silver surface evoked a futuristic, machinistic quality. It looked sharp and was bathed in utopian symbolism.

But faith in the future has gotten pretty old-hat by now. In the modern RV, the silver sheen has given way to a palette of softer, Kleenex-like colors with striping details borrowed from golf shirts. Its ratio of right angles to rounded corners roughly resembles that of a sardine can.

Ventura County has one prime destination point for itinerant RVers. RVs descend on the Rincon strip and create ephemeral little villages. An official sign outlining the Rincon Parkway rules instructs visitors to “park southward,” probably not realizing the poetic ring of the phrase. RVers are perennially heading south.

In terms of a natural site, the Rincon strip is a strange one, sandwiched tightly between the sea and the Ventura Freeway. But on a day with any kind of swell, the rumble of the waves drowns out the freeway din.

Once there, RVers hunker down within spitting distance of the Pacific, walk their dogs and sit out under awnings, watching the sunset over the ocean blue. There are much worse fates.

Much as the realm of RVs might carry a stigma of suburban surrealism, there is a sense of nomadic romanticism attached.

Are these RVers existential renegades defying life in societal ruts? Are they budget-conscious vacationers or wanderlusty retirees?

All, or part, of the above.

In his book “Freedom Road,” Harold Hough gets carried away with RV romanticism, writing that “the full-time RVer (young or old) is the last link to our pioneer ancestors.

They aren’t afraid of change, and even relish it. They are self-sufficient and willing to stand on their own feet. They judge you on your own merits, not the size of your rig.”

You could say that RV travel embodies the dichotomy at the heart of the American ethos.

The American dream is really a two-faced thing: a desire for homesteading along with the freedom of mobility.

The only thing missing now from RVs is the white picket fence.

LOCAL ARCHITECT HONORED: Ventura-based architect Scott Ellinwood was the subject of an invocation into the College of the Fellows of the American Institute of Architects. The event took place in Boston last Saturday.

Ellinwood, head of Scott Ellinwood and Associates Inc., Resource Conscious Architecture and Planning, has created several notable structures in Ventura County, including Salzer’s Video Store in Ventura, the Dorill B. Wright Cultural Center in Port Hueneme and the Ray D. Preuter Library in Port Hueneme (covered in this column last year).

Ellinwood’s Ventura County Coastal Corporation Building (which is now owned by the Bank of A. Levy) has been widely noted for its resourceful use of day lighting.