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Clip-together house highlights 'boring' buildings

A Newcastle artist will build a clip-together home in just 10 days to criticise “boring” modern housing.

Wolfgang Weileder, Professor of Contemporary Sculpture at Newcastle University, will build an exact replica of a Georgian terraced house on land in Sunderland’s historic Sunniside area. The replica will be built using a technique sometimes used in continental Europe where blocks click together like Lego, without using cement.

Prof Weileder of Heaton said he wanted to spark a debate about boring housing estates. He told the Journal: “I want Fold-Up to trigger public thought about the environment in which people live. It’s an important issue for people to be actively involved in the design and creation of their urban environment and not to take things for granted.

“People should take more ownership of cities and towns and not just leave it to developers and planners.

“It is fascinating to see the amount of development taking place in the North East and I would like to see more people critically involved and more building in a different way, incorporating sustainability and design ideas, instead of faking buildings from the past.”

The replica will stay on show for two weeks before being dismantled and the building materials recycled.

Wolfgang’s previous projects have included making a CD based on crowd noise from a Newcastle United match and a mini-golf course at Kielder Water based on local landscape features.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .