BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEAR 1
Y1 UNIT 3: House for a Superstar ERIC WONG + EVELINA VATZEVA
Students: Zubaer Ahmed, Leila Jade Berama, Silan Esen, Bethany Evans, Mimi Scarletta Franklin, Alessandro Islam, Bianca Mihaela, Zi Hao Mo, Abel Mingana Ndombasi, Ana Barbara Quiroga Villar, Jagraj Rai, Shivaree Sookhoo, Anosha Tarar Parveen, Alexander Tesfalem. With thanks to our critics: Marcin Chmura, Steven McCloy, Emily Yeung.
David Hockney (Artist), Karl Lagerfield (Fashion Designer and Photographer), Ada Lovelace (Mathematician and Inventor), Rene Magritte (Artist), Alexander McQueen (Fashion Designer), Steven Spielberg (Filmmaker), James Watt (Inventor), Prince Charles (Royalty and Environmental Activist), Anna Wintour (Fashion Journalist), and Stevie Wonder (Musician).
'HOUSE for a Superstar’ is a title borrowed from an architecture competition held in 1975. The competition was judged by Arata Isozaki — Ron Herron, Peter Cook and Tom Heneghen were amongst some of the many participants, with entries including a stage-set palace for the Queen and the perceived private house for rock singersongwriter Rod Steward. We often view these public figures from a tourist point of view, whilst only speculating on what their private lives might be. “Although there is a public face that is presented… once the guy or woman enters the house, there is a certain individuality that begins to occur, the guy who collects newspapers and fills his house with newspapers… there is a lifestyle that is not reflected by the public face.” — Ron Herron Unit 3’s brief was to develop and design a re-imagined house for a superstar, speculating on aspects of work, live and play and addressing both public (openly expressed, front stage) and private (domestic, backstage) characteristics. The ‘superstar’ provided a basis and a springboard to design a multi-functional building with diverse spatial requirements and opportunities from their extracted public competency, craft or activity. The list of superstars included: Margaret Atwood (Poet, Novelist and Activist), John Cage (Musician), Roald Dahl (Author), Amelia Earhart (Aviation Pioneer and Author), Anthony Gormley (Sculptor), Jakob and Willhelm Grimm (Author), → Alessandro Islam The Grimm’s House
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