LACUNA Fashion Island: Nouha's Masters of Architecture project
For her first year of Masters of Architecture at University of Westminster, Nouha has designed her exciting project 'LACUNA Fashion Island'.
The project is a response to the London housing crisis and seeks to showcase the potential of new London neighbourhoods as innovative, affordable and inclusive in a series of diverse island clusters along the Thames River.
LACUNA is the London island where fashion design is a way of self-expression and experimentation with aesthetics and where subjectivity is highly valued. As a style of dress can be a visual manifestation of where one stands, coloured by emotions, culture, history and politics, home is an expansion of what is inside of you - Bringing that beauty forth into your surroundings. Both are attempts at creating a state where the gap between one's inner life, body and surroundings feels the smallest.
On LACUNA, fashion designers, pattern cutters, and textile designers live and work in a strong community where personality and subjectivity are valued. New and established fashion designers share workshops and inspiration in this incubator. Designers enjoy the dreamy crystal spaces floating with the ebb and flow of the river and letting thoughts and ideas grow in atmospheric settings. A special activity on the island is making textiles from the algae farm growing beneath.
This understanding of fashion is reflected in the island's expressive and extravagant materiality. The line between concealed (private) and revealed (public) is softened with a series of spaces and transparent surfaces vertically and horizontally. LACUNA as part of the cluster of islands designed by Nouha's Studio shows how central London neighbourhoods can be innovative, prosperous, diverse, inclusive and affordable, which citizens are proud to call hime and part of their city.
LACUNA is the ‘space in between’ where personality, subjectivity, public, private and professional meet and inspire. Introducing subjectivity in between decision makers, City Hall, and the financial headquarter, Canary Wharf, the island has a ripple effect on its surroundings inspiring people to reconnect with themselves and their intuitions and improving their wellbeing.
The project is exhibited at the University of Westminster end of year show OPEN2017 until 30 June 2017.
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