- Feix&Merlin have been shortlisted for the Young Architect of the Year Award
Feix&Merlin won the Bathing Beauties competition 'Re-Imagining the Beach Hut for the 21st Century' in the summer of 2006. The winning design 'Eyes Wide sHut' was completed in September 2007.
The competition brief called for dramatic new seaside architecture with the intention to instigate coastal regeneration, part of a wider environmental improvement scheme led by Lincolnshire County Council and the Bathing Beauties organisation. We are very interested in coastal architecture because of its uniqueness, both in terms of the extremes of the physical conditions, but also because of the positive influence that an exciting new intervention can have on the coastal economy.
The seaside is all about taking in the views, the great expanse of the beach, the sea and the horizon; capturing these images and framing them in the mind’s eye and recording them to memory.
Eyes Wide sHut features two ornate picture frames, one to the front and one to the rear. These frames carry floor-to-ceiling mirrored polycarbonate panels reflecting the view of the beach to the front and of the town to the rear, as if someone had taken a picture and put it in the frame. From the inside the one-way mirrors allow a perfectly transparent and unobstructed view, but seen from outside they are reflective leaving passers-by wondering what is going on inside.
The internal walls are clad with a full-height, full-width graphic of a forest clearing: An escape from the hot beach into a quiet cool woodland, the big windows at either end allowing a voyeuristic peep out back into the real world.
The empty plot next to the hut can be used as a garden. The mirrored front frame of the beach hut slides out, completely opening up the front of the hut, and by doing so sheltering the garden from the wind, whilst retaining a view of the beach and impressive coastline.
