East Beach cafe, Littlehampton, Sussex
East Beach Café was completed in June 2007 and has since won more than 20 national and international awards for design, architecture, steelwork, craftsmanship and engineering. The inspiration for the design was a piece of driftwood, though it references many natural shapes of the sea and the coast – sand dunes, waves, rocks or anything you might find washed up on the beach. The exterior is made from mild steel, rusted and then coated in a special oil to protect it from the elements. It is a giant jigsaw of hundreds of flat ribbons of steel, each unique in shape, and was built over nine months by two men. Like the hull of a ship it is a self-supporting structure (monocoque), and is an extremely complicated piece of engineering. It was made in Littlehampton in four separate pieces, then brought on site and welded together. The whole process from commissioning the architect to completion took 18 months.
Size: 5184px × 3456px
Location: Littlehampton, West Sussex, England, UK
Photo credit: © 2ebill / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: architecture, beach, britain, british, cafe, coast, coastline, craftsmanship, design, driftwood, dunes, east, engineering, england, english, heatherwick, littlehampton, mild, natural, november, rocks, rusted, sand, sea, shapes, steel, steelwork, studio, sussex, uk, waves, west
