SHOW APARTMENTS AS ‘AESTHETIC TRAPS’: RISK, ENCHANTMENT AND ILLUSORY HOMES IN LONDON’S OLYMPIC PARK

Abstract

This article offers a new analysis of the ‘show apartment’ as a device to disguise the power imbalance between prospective buyers of new off-plan homes and the global network of institutions that drive property development and mortgage-finance industries. Applying Gell’s notion of the ‘aesthetic trap’ to an ethnographic account of show apartments in a new neighbourhood in London’s Olympic Park, the article demonstrates how show apartments are an illusory form at the apex of a process of risk and commodification that disguises and normalises the risks to which potential homeowners are exposed.

Keywords:

• show apartments
• display homes
• community
• citizenship
• London
• Olympic Park

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Delayed construction meant the first homes at Chobham Manor were not occupied until February 2016 -13 months after the first homes were released for sale.

2. Overnight queues at new off-plan housing developments in other areas of London were reported by news media on several occasions in 2015 (Sheffield 2015; Slawson et al. 2015).

3. ’Gazumping’ or ‘being gazumped’ is defined by the HomeOwners Alliance as “when another party makes a higher offer on the house you are in the process of buying and has that offer accepted, thus pushing you out of the purchase” - https://hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/i-am-buying/what-is-gazumping-how-avoid-it/

4. https://www.taylorwimpey.co.uk/buying-with-us/why-choose-us/why-buy-new. Accessed September 2016.

5. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/feb/01/property-developers-off-plan-investors accessed September 2016.

6. By comparison, a three-bedroom terraced house in London Fields, a similarly family-friendly neighbourhood in Hackney, sold for £1,325,000 in 2014.

7. See http://hotelchicblog.com/ accessed September 2016.

8. See for example - https://www.houzz.co.uk/ideabooks/44734885/list/styling-16-boutique-hotel-tricks-to-copy-at-home accessed September 2016.

9. See https://chobhammanor.co.uk, last accessed September 2018.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Saffron Woodcraft

My research FOCUSES ON THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF COMMUNITY: EXAMINING HOW SOCIAL POLICY, ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING TECHNOLOGIES AND PUBLIC SPACE INTERSECT WITH NOTIONS OF HOME, COMMUNITY AND CITIZENSHIP IN EAST LONDON. DRAWING ON THEORIES FROM MATERIAL CULTURE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY, MY WORK EXPLORES HOW COMMUNITY AS AN IMAGINARY AND SOCIAL PRACTICE IS IMPLICATED IN THE MAKING OF URBAN CITIZENS AND SOCIALITIES AT MOMENTS OF SPATIAL TRANSFORMATION. I HOLD A PHD IN ANTHROPOLOGY FROM UCL AND LEAD A TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROGRAMME EXPLORING LOCAL UNDERSTANDINGS OF PROSPERITY AND CHANGE IN THE CONTEXT OF LONDON’S OLYMPIC LEGACY TRANSFORMATION. [email protected]