Kanye West is building houses inspired by Star Wars
They currently look like "skeletons of wooden spaceships," according to a report by Forbes.
Tatooine has some pretty bleak architecture.
Luke Skywalker's house on Star Wars desert planet Tatooine looks a bit like a sandy igloo. It doesn't exactly speak to the luxury and decadence we might expect of a celebrity like Kanye West , but that hasn't stopped the rapper from studying the look of Tatooine's architecture. He's using that inspiration to fuel the design for a new kind of abode that could be deployed for the homeless.
"West has been working with a team to design prefabricated structures that sport the same austere aesthetic, with the goal of deploying them as low-income housing units," Forbes reported in an article for the upcoming Aug. 31 issue of its magazine.
Physical prototypes are underway. Forbes senior editor Zack O'Malley Greenburg saw them and described them as looking like "skeletons of wooden spaceships." They're oblong and dozens of feet tall, though the public has yet to see any images of the Star Wars-inspired designs.
West told Forbes the housing could be used for the homeless and even "sunk into the ground with light filtering through the top."
Yeezy has already built up some Star Wars fandom cred, dropping the line "But if they ever flip sides like Anakin" in the 2005 song Gone. His 2013 song Guilt Trip name-checks both Star Wars and Chewbacca.
It remains to be seen whether West's housing idea takes off, and just how much it resembles the dome-shaped architecture of Tatooine. West's desire to provide affordable housing for people in need certainly meshes with the do-good side of the Force.
Originally published July 11