The Huts Eastbourne

 
  

competition – The Huts Eastbourne

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Usually unassuming in external appearance, the simple form of the beach hut can house a multitude of intimate and idiosyncratic spaces. These are often shrines to romantic and highly personalised ideals of the British seaside: the poetic retreat, the fisherman’s tackle box, or the nostalgic debris of family summer escapades.

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Our proposal for Eastbourne is an extroversion of the whimsical interior life of the traditional beach hut. By day, a modular canopy cascades coloured sunlight, water, and glittering chain screens, projecting a patchwork of individual moments of varying privacy onto the shingle beach. A triple-folding door opens out to provide a wind-break, and allows the core of the hut to be safely locked away at the end of the day.

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By dusk and dawn, external lighting within the canopy casts a soft glow welcoming the intrepid bather back from a bracing Channel plunge.