Zara Ashby

What do we mean by migrant? Is it just a term to group and further de-individualise people? Migration has become a confused and even derogatory term. On one end of the migratory spectrum there is a new generation where transience, migration and the liquidity of being becomes desirable. On the other end of the spectrum, 2015 will be recognised as the year of the refugee crisis. Displaced people collectively constitute the 25th largest nation in the world. With approximately 58 million members, it is almost as large as the UK. This design proposal creates a stable monument to represent displaced and transient people, attempting to address 'migrant stigmatisation,' and to raise awareness of the problem of migrant alienation. It speculates about whether a landless nation can effectively squat inside another nation’s borders and what infrastructure might need to be involved.

Nation 25 sits as a platform within engaging countries, enabling both the residing country and the people of nation 25 to benefit. Nation 25's main resource is knowledge and the trading & exchange of that knowledge. The embassy becomes a portal to other cultures and countries. Both the residing country and Nation 25 have mutualistic sovereignty as the transparent state enables people to move around more easily via a treaty drawn up between Nation 25 and the residing nation. The site,94 Piccadilly, represents establishment. A Palladian building within the embassy district of London, left to decay since 1996, known more often as the In & Out Club. Its current owners, the Reuben brothers, plan on turning it into the UK's most expensive private home at £250m, including an underground swimming pool, 45 rooms and a 35,000 bottle wine cellar. The Reuben brothers paid £3m to local amenities and affordable housing within Westminster, a mere 1.2% of the estimated value of the property. The current housing crisis within the UK and its severity in London puts more pressure on the impact of migrants, creating more negative tension. (I propose that) Under section 106 within UK planning laws, the Reuben brothers are not permitted to use the 60,000sq ft. site for singular dwelling and are instead only permitted to use 1.2% of the sq. footage of the house. The embassy element of the design slices into the regency of the establishment building, becoming a metaphor for the political ideals of Nation 25. The embassy of Nation 25 is challenging what it means to be a nation, challenging borders and boundaries, thresholds, the status quo and most of all the concept of identity, national and individual.