A House for Tolkien: "Ghosts in the Machine" Part 2 Project 2021 Thomas Robinson Hull College, | UK The House for Tolkien, “Ghosts in The Machine”, is an exploration of the two conflicting sides of J.R.R Tolkien’s mindset. It comes under the realisation that Tolkien’s psyche was fractured by his experiences of the First World War, conflicting with his perceived halcyon existence prior. As a result, he generated a world to escape, document and rebuild his perfection.The idea of two opposing, conflicting elements forms the underlying concept and is what drives the project, developed from an exploration into Tolkien’s life in the form of a linear transcriptional language that explore the parallels between his fiction and reality.Located in Nottingham in a place of Tolkien’s halcyon past. The ideology of conflict is expressed through two buildings dividing the site. The north building is dedicated to Tolkien and his family as a space in which they would live. The design expresses elements of Tolkien’s past as well as a contemporary alternative, playing on the idea of his fractured mindset. The south building opposes this in its form and functionality, an un-inhabitable space in which Tolkien escapes to and immerses himself within his fiction, expressing the paradigm of the two opposing yet parallel elements of Tolkien’s life. Tutor(s)