These Acoustic Shells, in a sunken garden beside the beach in Littlehampton, were designed by London studio Flanagan Lawrence to facilitate community events and provide residents of the West Sussex town with a scenic resting spot on the edge of a sunken garden, between the town and a beach facing the English Channel.
Description of the project by Flanagan Lawrence.
The brief called for a stage and shelter to be sited in a sunken garden beside the beach in Littlehampton. Our strategy has been to create a pair of doubly curved sprayed concrete shells which emerge from the field of grass.
One shell faces the town and forms the principal bandstand. The acoustic design of the interior creates a reflective surface to project the sound of the performers to the audience in the sunken garden. The other shell faces the beach and forms a more intimate structure as a shelter for listening to the sound of the sea or for buskers to perform facing the promenade.
The shell structures have been created without formwork with the concrete sprayed directly on to the reinforcement mesh. The majority of the concrete shell is only 100mm thick and relies on the double curved geometry to span the stage.
The two shells appear like white land forms emerging from the grass of the greensward. This is reflects the historical context of the concrete sound mirrors along the south coast at Dungeness, and the visually striking form of the local sand dunes.
The project was won in competition in 2012 and it has been completed in time to be used during the summer of 2014.
CREDITS.-
Architects.- Flanagan Lawrence.
Engineers.- Expedition.
Landscape Architects.- LDA.
Client.- Littlehampton Council.
