This summer, Love Island was once again the hottest reality tv obsession of the season. While everyone is talking about the hot bombshells, they fail to notice the important star of the show: the villa itself, which much like the Hunger Games arenas, are designed to keep the audience entertained.
The Love Island villa is a cartoonishly decorated mansion, comparable to Barbie’s dream house, that has an overstimulating amount of bright colors and neon lights covering every wall designed to make every camera shot pop.
While the reality show’s premise is helping the contestants find romance, the behind-the-scenes demonstrates how much of the show really centers around creating entertainment for the audience. Contestants live under an almost dystopian-like system where interaction with crew members is almost nonexistent, allowing them to forget, at least momentarily, that every side-eye, kiss, and argument is being broadcast to millions.
The Love Island production designer, Richard Jensen, spoke with Architectural Digest about the latest season’s unique villa, the first that they have ever built from the ground up. Although the contestants know they will obviously be on camera, the production crew made sure that they don’t notice the cameras placed throughout the villa, hiding them behind secret sliding wall panels and managing them from a control room. Even the mobile rail cameras that do closer moving shots of the cast are operated remotely. Beyond secret cameras, there are also secret passageways so that crew members can magically clean up the villa, fix bedsheets, and restock the pantry without contestants running into them.
The villa also differs from normal houses because it has no doors. In past seasons, doors could muffle sound, block cameras, or give contestants a rare moment of privacy. This time, the production eliminated that possibility altogether. Every passageway is open, and every single room, including the bathrooms, is mic’d up to ensure that nothing goes unheard or unseen.
The incorporation of circular furniture and sitting areas is also very intentional. Jensen says,
“The reason for that shape is to be able to have intimacy with a large group of people, and to be able to see and interact with each other. They’re sort of being forced to be close together, which is also good for camera coverage.”
The iconic semi-circle firepit is the perfect example, giving the audience a perfect panoramic view of every reaction on the couch, a reminder that every detail of the villa is engineered for entertainment purposes.
This season’s villa was also designed to include a few more “private” spaces, including Soul Ties, which is just a small nook with a cushioned floor that was a popular spot for many contestants to have intimate conversations. While these areas offered islanders a brief escape from the rest of the cast, the privacy was, of course, an illusion. Every moment was still captured on camera, ensuring that the audience had front-row access to the most intense, vulnerable conversations.