RIBA Regional Awards 2014: South
Exbury Egg, Exbury, Hampshire
PAD Studio for SPUD
Contract £40,000. GIA 17m2
Artist and architect hatched this design after being inspired by a nest full of eggs. Tethered on the River Beaulieu in the New Forest, it was put together using age-old boat building techniques; becoming an object of art in itself. The cladding gives a unique pattern to the structure which is different on every angle and forever changing. It is also somewhere to live for the artist, containing a bed, wet room and desk space as a base for studying the shoreline. The egg shape must have given the design team many challenges, including the restrictions of buoyancy.
