Next Wave Bexhill Shelters
Location: Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex.
Status: Competition entry 2009
Client: Next Wave, Rother District Council
Contract Value: £100,000
We wanted to celebrate the fun and frivolity of the seaside, and create the perfect environment for a place of imagination, relaxation and enjoyment.
Rather than propose a single building as a shelter, we wanted to explore the idea of a shelter made up from a number of individual smaller components that altogether, create one whole. What we are proposing is a series of seats and outdoor sofas that sit within a magical garden of flexible reeds.
The Seats, reminiscent of the Georgian style Porter’s Chairs, incorporate shaped hooded tops to protect from the rain, and curved sides to protect from the wind. Each pivots on an individual spindle which can turn a full 360 degrees allowing the visitor to find their own view, turn to escape from the wind or catch the sun.
There is little handy shelf incorporated into the armrest for that impromptu Gin & tonic or somewhere to put your sandwich. The individual seats can be coupled together to make a little outdoor living room, and some have been fused together to make double and family sized seats.
The seats could be made from GRP (Glassfibre reinforced plastic) which benefits from mass production techniques, so will be extremely cost efficient and fast to manufacture, and if any more are required in the future they can easily be reproduced from the original mould. GRP is a highly durable material, easily maintained and is perfectly suited to the seaside environment. It can be applied with anti-graffiti coatings and is resilient to vandalism.
The Double Seat provides just enough room for two. A place to cuddle up together, a space for canoodling by the sea.
Two single seats can be turned together to create a little living room by the sea, and if you like the look of the person sitting next to you, you can turn to face each other.
The Reeds define the boundaries of the space and create little pockets, like in the reed beds in sand dunes, within which the seats can be found. This flexible approach means that we can create a variety of spaces suitable for families and friends to gather, as well as provide opportunities for people to create their own quieter contemplative spaces to enjoy the view and get on with some serious people watching.
The Reeds will bend and waft around in the wind; you can push them aside and play with them and use them to wave to your friends. At night the tops of some of the reeds will become illuminated, lighting up the space with a soft moving light. Some of the reeds stop at lower level and provide lighting to the seats themselves allowing them to be used well into the evening. The reeds are powered by solar power at the tips, or wind power generated by their own movement.
The reeds could be made from carbon fibre, like fishing rods, making them incredibly flexible but very strong. We can control the bending strength so that they can’t be bent too far.
The Kiosk is shaped at a cranky angle and creates a little courtyard space protected from the wind and rain. A big signage panel slides up at the front when the Kiosk is open to signal to everyone around that it’s time for ice cream! There are more seats and reeds here to enjoy it from. A little blue and white awning at the side provides a bit of shelter from the rain, or shade from the hot sun if you’re lucky, and somewhere to display all those inflatables. We thought that it could be built from untreated timber that would turn bleached silver in the sun. At closing time the signage panel comes down and the awning folds away so that the whole thing doesn’t appear to have any doors, like a giant piece of driftwood washed up on the shore.