More than a House
Fashion House
T.H. Johnson (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
D. van Gameren – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
C.H.C.F. Kaan – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
D.J. Rosbottom – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
P.E.L.J.C. Vermeulen – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
N.A. de Vries – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
More than a House reimagines the training center for Olympique de Marseille—the French city’s professional football club—on the grounds of the former Monastere Serviane in the city’s eastern suburbs. The training center reinterprets the cloisters of Western European monasteries to integrate the club headquarters and training facilities with all-in-house fashion brand workshops around a series of interconnected courtyards, each encompassing one primary programmatic denomination, that cascade from the ridgetop monastic buildings to the training fields in the valley below, sequentially organized by the degrees of privacy and isolation required by each group.
Fashion and sports’ longstanding symbiosis emphatically demonstrate garments’ figurative capacity for broader cultural and economic dynamics. Progressive over-commodification in both industries has been clearly evident in brands’ names and logos signifying often self-proclaimed ideals despite displaying lackluster commitment at the expense of the loyal fan. Redefined by a slower fashion paradigm and regionalized economic networks, the football club is the preeminent champion to endorse regional identity and brands through fashion.
On the premises of the all-in-house training center, football kits are made from recycled kits following the Fashion House “On the House” certification standard, having been exchanged by recurrent fans in a closed-loop and unlicensed process that is self-financed from the club’s ready-made fanbase’s impassioned support for what the club represents. Cultivating fan loyalty with quality on-field play and off-field apparel, the training center regiments training and optimizes performance—of athletes and garments—to ensure that fashion will be driven by fans’ brand loyalty, made all-in-house, and made with quality and integrity.