East Beach café, Littlehampton, West Sussex
2007
Heatherwick Studio
Photo : Andy Stagg
East Beach Café: Project Description
Location: Littlehampton, West Sussex
Function: Café, kiosk, and restaurant
Building Area: 280m²
Building Dimensions: H x 5m, L x 40 m, W x 7 m
Total Floor Area: 205 m²
Seats: 45 internal, 80 external
Exterior Structure: 8 millimetre Mild Steel treated with Owatrol Oil
Weight of Steel: 34 t
No. of Steel Ribbons: 36
Width of Ribbon: 30 cm
Completion: July 2007
Heatherwick Studio was commissioned to design a café building to replace a seafront kiosk in Littlehampton, a traditional seaside town on England's south coast. Exposed to weather and vandalism, the narrow site sits between the sea and a parade of houses.
Photo : Andy Stagg
The studio saw its challenge as being to produce a long, thin building without flat, twodimensional façades. The building is sliced diagonally into ribbons which wrap up and over the building, forming a layered protective shell, open to the sea in front.
The opening is filled with glass doors and windows, protected at night by roller shutters concealed within the building's geometry, the 30 centimetre width of the ribbons being the dimension of a shutter mechanism.
In contrast to the conventional white-washed seaside aesthetic, the building is raw and weathered, its structural steel shell finished with an oil-based coating that permits a rust-like patination to develop without affecting structural performance. A kiosk and cafeteria by day and a restaurant in the evening, the new café seats forty five.
East Beach café designers : Heatherwick Studio
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