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about this project, the taking of something highly
generic and transportable, and turning it into something
very unique and site specific."
e design represents a new architectural frontier, but
for Whitaker it's merely work. While he admits to having
"no appetite for producing the same stuff as everyone
else," he does not consider his work experimental or
conceptual. He starts with the fundamentals of all good
architecture—the views, how it feels to be in a space, how
light reacts with form—then expands his thinking, which
in the case of this project was to consider, "how can we re-
purpose this into something that is unique and original?"
Did Whitaker see this architectural comet coming?
"Not at all. I had no idea that it would have such universal
appeal," says Whitaker, who will need the entirety of
his architectural references—including Herzog and
de Meuron, OMA, John Pawson, Frank Gehry, and
Richard Rogers—to complete a series of new projects
from an office building in Spain, to the master planning
of a new town in the Caribbean, to a house project in
Iceland. He's done the desert, why not ice?
whitakerstudio.co.uk
THE JOSHUA TREE
RESIDENCE DESIGN
LOOKS HIGHLY
CONCEPTUAL,
WITH SHIPPING
CONTAINERS
THAT FAN OUT
TOWARD THE
LANDSCAPE, WHICH
THE STRUCTURE
INTEGRATES WITH
VIEWS AND NATURAL
LIGHT, BUT ITS
FOUNDATION IS THE
FUNDAMENTALS
OF ALL GOOD
ARCHITECTURE.
