I stopped to draw the Mole Man's house in Mortimer Road, Dalston, as I cycled home the other day. It was once the home of William Lyttle, aka Mole Man, who tunnelled beneath it in all directions over more than 40 years, until complaints led to his eviction. (He was rehoused in a flat and was dead within a few years.) It has looked like a building site for years, but now there is activity above ground as it undergoes restoration.
The architect David Adjaye, who designed the forthcoming National Museum of African American History and Culture in the National Mall, Washington, DC, among other buildings, is overseeing the design for the artists Sue Webster and Tim Noble, who are said to have paid more than £1m for the house at auction. It doesn't look anything special yet, unless you like corrugated iron and scaffolding.
