Liverpool, United Kingdom
Studio MUTT has completed an artist’s studio by the seashore in Poole Harbour, designed to feel like an upside-down boat and made of timber standing on a concrete shelf that projects from the landscape over the beach below.
The building looks out across Poole Harbour, providing a space for the client that recreates the other-worldly peacefulness of being out at sea.
At the rear of the building, the pitched geometry of the roof manipulates and reduces in size to become diminutive in height, sitting against a new dry-stone retaining wall in the planted landscape.
The structure is covered in sculptors’ scrim, vertical battens, and a grid of scallop shell ornaments, locally sourced.
The Pottering Shed, as it is named, is waterproofed with a brushable liquid rubber coating.
Recycled timber shuttering planks become the flooring, while the front door, complete with portal window, is reclaimed from a nearby shipyard.
Steel windows with a central pivot, and horizontal opening are used to generate fully flexible and variable ventilation, and are painted in a light blue to reference the vibrant roof tiles of the adjacent historic boatshed and Grade II-listed Boat House.
Project: The Pottering Shed
Architects: Studio MUTT
Executive Architect: Rebecca Granger
Structural Engineer: STRUCTURE HAUS
Contractor: Groundwork: Morris Construction
Client: Private
Photographers: Jim Stephenson
