Richard Woods casts a cartoon house into a skip in east London

Cast into a skip in a car-parking space is a cartoon house by artist Richard Wood. It’s a suprising addition to Hoxton square in London, but Skip Gallery has a reputation for popping up in unexpected places – from residential squares to commercial districts of the city.
This installation, opening for the occasion of the London Festival of Architecture and running for the month of June, is titled ‘Upgrade’.
‘Shaping and altering our immediate surroundings is a fundamental part of being alive,’ says Woods, who hopes that the piece will make people question their surroundings and context of Hoxton square in a new way.
The project is a follow up from his ‘Holiday Home’ installation conceived for the Folkstone Triennial in 2017. This saw the arrival of six bright bungalows across the coastal town bringing attention to housing issues across the UK such as second-home ownership and the national housing shortage.
Richard Woods (centre) with Skip Gallery founders Lee Baker and Catherine Borowski. Photography: Ali Tovery
Sketches by Richard Woods for the project design
Richard Woods’ ‘Upgrade’ installed at Skip Gallery in Hoxton Square
The installation of ‘Upgrade’ by Richard Woods
INFORMATION
‘Upgrade’ is on view until 30 June. For more information, visit the Skip Gallery website
ADDRESS
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Skip Gallery
The parking space opposite 19 Hoxton Square
London
N1 6PB
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
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