2007
UK Award Part 2
Dark Fruit
“Dark Fruit” investigates the contradictions between our desire for untouched, Thoreau-esque nature and our pursuit of technological advancement.
Rosy Head
Royal College of Art
Produce is brought to shore adjacent to St. Thomas Hospital in Lambeth, via an underground quarantine transfer territory. © Rosy Head.
Jury
Nigel Coates
Kent Jackson
Roger Kallman
Martha Schwartz
Ross Wimer
Depression and anxiety are the largest causes of “measured misery” in the United Kingdom and with rapidly expanding markets for alternative treatments and organic produce, can we reconcile the authenticity of nature with the alchemic ability of nutraceutical nanotechnology?
We are offered a future of fruit enhanced with drug-delivery systems, where we can shop, consume, and believe once again in the British blackberry, oblivious to the complex technological infrastructure required to keep it in full bloom.
Every new invention casts a long shadow.
Paul Virilio
With a long wait to full commercialization, offshore alchemic isles produce atomically modified British fruit and vegetables. © Rosy Head.
Control Orchard + Nutraceutical Food Hall. The glass structure appears alchemic; a distortion to an organic form from the more linear food hall above. The convergence of the natural and scientific worlds—a fragile coexistence. © Rosy Head.
Plan 1:200. Control Orchard, Isles Kingdoms, and Nutraceutical Foodhall at entrance level. The columns sit in clusters, gaining strength from their portal frame configurations, and appear like parts of a cell structure hovering in a matrix of light. © Rosy Head.
Hidden basement servicing plan. © Rosy Head.
Blueprint section. © Rosy Head.
Rosy Head
Royal College of Art
Rosy Head
is an interdisciplinary theorist based between London and Paris. Head taught at the Royal College of Art in London for nine years, initially running a Speculative Futures studio, and then as Senior Tutor, head of the final year of the two-year Masters in Architecture. She helped design the curriculum for the London Interdisciplinary School, a new university specializing in interdisciplinary thinking to help tackle some of the world’s most complex problems. She also programs an annual lecture at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, which invites maverick thinkers and cross-disciplinary practitioners whose work questions our assumptions and imagines what the world can be.