SUMMER PROJECT - 

COMMUNITY HUB

The Brief: Summer Project to design a stand-alone ‘pavilion style’ building that responds to the dynamic nature of a chosen site, incorporating a commercial unit with public amenities.

The site: Littlehampton beach front

Littlehampton is a family focused town, hosting a small fun fair and mini golf facilities, but a lack of free public amenity. This leaves visitors frustrated and the large car park nearly vacant. In 2005, Heatherwick studios identified the area as having potential for development and constructed a café on the promenade, where a public services would sit nicely alongside the café and provide further attraction to forgotten coastal town. Situated at the junction between the car park and café, as well as opposite the popular mini-golf course, the services provide for both those using the beach and the other facilities. The resident beach train cuts through this site, so the building should be separated to prevent obstructing its path. The steel-clad café and local beach huts clash in terms of form and materials, providing an opportunity to take from both and bridge the visual gap. Not only should the building protect from the essential British rain, but also the strong and unobstructed sunlight provides a challenge all year round. The promenade that runs adjacent to the site and along that section of the southern coast is popular with cyclists, and a lack of cycling shops naturally calls for a cycling stand to be combined with the public services, offering maintenance and cycling parts, potentially even cycle hire.

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Plan:  the public services and bicycle shop have been split into two entities (left and right, respectively). This is not only to prevent disruption to the existing train line, but also to prevent a clash congestion where cyclists and general 
public may get in each other’s way. Two separate buildings and spaces allow each to function accordingly, but keeping each other identical in plan and form prevents them from becoming completely separate.

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Form: A personal favourite about the beach is the groynes, and how old and weathered timber can host mussels and small plant in what appears to be dead material. I wanted to replicate that, taking the use of raw steel in the adjacent café and create a small step along the bottom of the buildings that provides seating, and flowerbeds. Traditional and local beach pavilions have lead towards the white timber cladding and the pitched roof, but curving the form of the building calls for a more complex construction technique.