The Ebbsfleet Landmark Project Limited

Rachel Whiteread proposed creating a craggy, 'recycled mountain', on top of which sits a life-size cast interior of a house. The silhouette of the house perching on top of the mountain like a castle would have presented a magical, fairytale scene. The mountain would have emerged from Springhead park as if it was a natural continuation of the landscape, complete with white chalk escarpments and plants. The gentle slope of the hill as approached on foot would have made it possible for visitors to climb up to the house and look out over the spectacular North Kent landscape. In contrast, the silhouette of the hill on the southern side would have been steep and craggy.

Whiteread was inspired by the landscape of the nearby quarries and the vast volumes of earth being moved around to create Ebbsfleet Valley and wanted to echo these processes by creating the mountain from the excess materials being moved around the site. The house would be constructed from whitened concrete. Whiteread's choice of material made a strong connection to the concrete industry that developed in this part of North Kent. However it is also a material that she has employed previously in her work, most famously in 'House', a temporary work created in East London in 1993 in which she cast the interior of a Victorian terraced house.

Whiteread is known for casting the interior spaces of domestic objects and places. She saw the house in this proposal as a symbolic of the concept of 'home' - the house she chose was based upon a Victorian house she used to live in but could in fact be anybody's home. Springhead has been a place of great significance and home to many communities from pre-history to Romans, Anglo-Saxons and now the new Ebbsfleet Valley development. Whiteread is making a physical monument to all of these communities and their houses which have now entirely disappeared.

"As you walk up to it it would become stranger, it would be an inside out house. The light switches would be inverted, the door handles would be inverted, the little details that you would only see close up would become more obvious" - Rachel Whiteread, 2008

Rachel Whiteread is one of Britain's leading contemporary sculptors. Whiteread studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic and sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art. Her 1993 sculpture, "House," a life-sized replica of the interior of a condemned terraced house in London's East End gained critical acclaim and provoked intense public debate until it was eventually demolished in 1994.

Over the last decade she has developed a significant international reputation, creating major public works in both Europe and the United States. Her winning proposal for the Holocaust memorial at the Judenplatz in Vienna was one of the most prestigious sculptural commissions in Europe in the 1990s and was unveiled in 2000. The work consists of the cast of the interior of a library depicting the imprints of thousands of books lined up along its shelves, sited in the centre of the square.

Whiteread represented the UK at the 1997 Venice Biennale and created "Monument" for the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2001. Her "Water Tower" (1998) was recently reinstalled on the roof of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She lives and works in London and her work is represented in many private and public collections worldwide. In 1993 she won the Turner Prize.

Rachel Whiteread is represented in the UK by the Gagosian Gallery www.gagosian.com