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The Core Studio projects are full-scale inhabitable structures that are designed and built in the Hooke Park landscape. These test constructions act as vehicles to research and test architectural ideas that will be developed further in proposals for the Hooke Park Project. By building using materials from the woodland, designing in immediate response to the site, and coping with the English autumn environment, the realities of a Hooke Park project are understood.

Phase 1: Core Studio projects

Design & Make

Abdulla, Hugo and Karj built an inhabitable suspended ‘cocoon’ that took its form from a precise weaving through three trees at the fringe of a forest clearing.

An ad-hoc monocoque of cedar strips sawn from Hooke Park trees, the structure emerged through a process of ‘bandaging’ until it was stiff enough to hang it from the trees.

Bojana, Elizabeth and Eva both designed and constructed their shelter on the actual (muddy) site, using off-cuts from the Big Shed cladding planks to build planar frames.

Natalia and Thiago chose the Big Shed project’s Portacabin site-hut for customisable parasitic additions (using Hooke Park coppice thinnings) in response to the patterns of use by the build team.