Good manors

I’ve been trying to persuade a friend to let me stand on their shoulders while wearing an incredibly long coat that covers us both. That way I’ll finally be tall enough to get into that village house marked "GOLEMS ONLY". What do they serve in there? I bet all their food is rich in iron!

Anyway, turns out it’s not just people who get the urge to stand one on top of the other – buildings do it too. Just look at the little houses in Juan Sebastian Murcia’s Slums & Manors project. Huddled together in clusters at least ten storeys high, they’re like bricky cheerleading pyramids. Give me a B! Give me an L! Give me an O, a C, and a K! Seriously though, please give me a block – I’m going to need loads more to compete with Sebastian.

Slums & Manors uses height to tell a story. At the peak of a tall island, a palace looks proudly out across the water. The gleaming, wide windows beneath its tiered domes suggest ballrooms and lavish parties hosted within. But further down still, in the foundations of the manor, sit the slums. From the beach, it almost looks as if the many tiny houses are propping up the stately home.

Sebastian pulled his ideas for the manor from Pinterest and Artstation. But the inspiration for the slums was found close by. “My visual reference of the lower income neighborhoods was La Comuna 13 in Medellín,” he says. “Structurally, it matched the story and style of the project.”

The real Comuna 13 is built into a mountainside and made accessible by escaleras electricas – outdoor escalators. Can you imagine how much redstone they would take to power? Sebastian’s recreation is full of lights that give the neighbourhood a bright and inviting feel.

“Anywhere there is talent,” Sebastian says. “There are people that have much to show to the world, but unfortunately are deprived of the chance to do it, since people that come from these neighbourhoods do not have the necessary tools to show people that they are talented too, with or without money.”

If you look closely, you’ll see that the slums are spreading - some have even popped up on the roof of the manor, their warm, yellow windows peeking out over the domes like little eyes. It’s nice to think that they enjoy the same view out over the sea as the wealthy palace residents. Perhaps even a slightly better one.

“I wanted to show that people of lower incomes are worth the same as rich people,” Sebastian says. “That lower income people can stand out, despite the social difference. That's why I made it like that, invading their space so that they could be noticed.”