"This exhibition is an innovative and engaging look at the architecture of beach hut design. It evolved from the Bathing Beauties, a Hub touring exhibition which inspired 240 architects, artists and designers from 15 countries to compete for commissions to build their 21st century designs on the Lincolnshire coast. The best 100 models will be on show here in Scarborough."
Bathing Beauties, an international exhibition of more than 100 models designed by artists and architects which re-imagine the British beach hut for the first time in 300 years, will be held during Architecture Week later this year. From June 15 until September 2, the designs (including the Onda House pictured) will be on display at The Hub, National Centre for Craft & Design, Sleaford, Lincolnshire.
Following last year's hugely successful Bathing Beauties Festival (the local paper headline reported ‘Hut Festival Wows World’) including arguably the world's largest celebration of beach huts, the 2nd festival runs this coming weekend, September 20-21. It is held once again on the 16km of lovely beaches on the Lincolnshire coast where you can ogle hundreds of beach huts and enjoy the ‘Beautiful Beach Hut’ competition as well as music, food, storytelling, puppet shows and temporary art installations plus fireworks and firesculptures in the evening. The festival aims to promote the beautiful, but partly forgotten stretch of British seaside for the enjoyment of visitors and the local communities, generating cultural and economic benefits for the towns.
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While the Bathing Beauties beach hut extravaganza last year was very exciting, the traditional beach hut design takes a lot of beating. Here are some examples by Michael Trainor (who organised Bathing Beauties) of existing traditional huts along the Lincolnshire coast from Mablethorpe to Anderby Creek. There are currently around 520 existing huts in use or in disrepair along this 10 mile stretch of stunning coastline. Thanks to Lesa Dryburgh for supplying the images.
There was a very positive response to the post about the Bathing Beauties exhibition and the organisers have kindly sent me some more images for you to linger over. These are:
The Bathing Beauties festival-extravaganza-competition last year was a marvellous showcase for new beach hut designs. Above is one of the most intriguing, and one of the winners, Eyes Wide sHut from Feix&Merlin (photo by Michael Trainor). Those interested in the above and other Bathing Beauty designs will be interested to hear that there is a possibility of commissioning full scale designs from the Bathing Beauty web site. For more details email questions@bathingbeauties.org.uk
Shedworking is celebrating Earth Day today in the same way we celebrate all big events - with a mildly appropriate shed. Pictured above is the Cloud Bar on the beach at Anderby Creek in Lincolnshire which opened earlier this month for business (well, for pleasure actually). According to The Cloud Appreciation Society it is the world’s first ‘Official Cloudspotting Area’. The concept of the Cloud Bar shed came from Michael Trainor, the artist behind the marvellous Bathing Beauties Beach Hut Festival and general bonanza. On the top viewing platform are special cloud identification 'menus' with mirrors to help with your cloudspotting.
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Boxes - pictured above - is due to be built in summer this year in Lancaster by John Kingston and Franklyn Weber of SOMA Design, the clever folk behind one of the winners of the Bathing Beauties beach hut competition we covered extensively on Shedworking. According to SOMA, the client wants a "playful structure which combines traditional building techniques with modern ideas on design and ecology". Here's their solution: "Boxes is based on green oak frameworks with a coloured wattle and daub in-fill and sedum is the covering on all roof surfaces. The glass porch area is a concession to more modern building methods as well as being a pleasant room for lounging in when Lancaster's weather is less inviting... It goes without saying that Boxes is fitted out to the highest standard expected of today's outdoor rooms."
Following the major success of the Bathing Beauties competition and exhibition last year, it will be interesting to see if there is a resurgence of interest in beach hut architecture. Here's an indicator that great things may be afoot, a beach hut in Mablethorpe spotted by Guzzisue at Travel, Fibre and Thread who says it is constructed of wooden strips interleaved with either perspex or glass.
Via Shedblog
