Design & Make, working with Diploma Unit 19, has designed the “Big Shed”, a 500m2 enclosure that will accommodate future fabrication, assembly and prototyping activities at Hooke Park. The building is conceived by the students of AA Design & Make and Diploma Unit 19 as an ‘adaptable’ structure. It has large moveable sections that future users will be able reconfigure to form walls (in winter, for wind and rain shelter), doors, or canopies (in summer, for shading, and to allow large components and equipment in and out of the Shed.
The building will be constructed from larch, sourced from Hooke Park and local woodlands. For the primary structure, tree-trunks will be used ‘in-the-round’, thereby retaining their full structural integrity. An ‘ad-hoc’ infill of smaller secondary members will carry the cladding. The intention is that the build team will shape and contribute to the final structural design of the project, which is conceived as a vehicle to encompass the ad hoc, improvised and impromtu.