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Kanye West to be “one of the biggest real estate developers of all time”
The rapper's new architecture studio released its first renderings this week
Forget about albums, Kanye West now drops renderings.
The rapper turned designer, entrepreneur and now developer revealed his newly-formed architecture studio’s first project, a prefabricated affordable housing scheme, via one of his collaborator’s Instagram account this week, according to the Architect’s Newspaper.
The public release of the renderings come weeks after West filmed an interview where he spoke about his plans to build a real estate empire. In a lengthy taped conversation between him and radio and television personality Charlamagne Tha God, West said, “I’m going to be one of the biggest real estate developers of all time. Like what Howard Hughes was to aircrafts and what Henry Ford was to cars.”
The interview concluded with both men walking along a grassy hilltop on a 300-acre property owned by West, which he claimed would be the location of his first “community.” West said he planned to build five properties on the land.
West’s had a long-standing interest in architecture — he appeared at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 2013 to address a class from on top a desk– and has collaborated with architects such as OMA, Family, John Pawson, and Alex Vervoodt as Architect’s Newspaper reported. And, more recently, West worked with Willo Perron to renovate a more than 14,000-square-foot office building from the 1970s into the headquarters of his company, Yeezy Studio, in Calabasas, California.
But it was only last month, via Twitter, that he announced his new venture to bring architectural design in-house: “We’re starting a Yeezy architecture arm called Yeezy home,” he tweeted. “We’re looking for architects and industrial designers who want to make the world better.”
This week, one of the Yeezy Home collaborators, Jalil Peraza, posted on Instagram renderings of the studio’s prefabricated low-income housing scheme. Here’s a glimpse at what a Yeezy home could look like:
Renderings of prefabricated housing scheme, designed by collaborators Petra Kustrin, Jalil Peraza, Kanye West, Nejc Skufca, according to Peraza’s caption. (Credit: Instagram via Jalil Peraza)
Renderings of prefabricated housing scheme, designed by collaborators Petra Kustrin, Jalil Peraza, Kanye West, Nejc Skufca, according to Peraza’s caption. (Credit: Instagram via Jalil Peraza)
[AN] — Erin Hudson