Durley Chine’s new Eco Hub - Eco Chic
Bournemouth is stuffed full of creativity. It is full of painters, poets, film makers, dancers. There are two Universities bursting with courses for the creatives. It is the centre for Dance in the South West. It has a charming old museum. ( I’ll leave aside Poole and Christchurch for the moment) But somehow it’s never managed to show itself as a go-to creative hub. New buildings (of which there are many) are unadventurous and architects are clearly told to be as conservative as possible
So it’s refreshing to visit somewhere that shows a bit of genuine flair in design and execution and which makes brilliant use of its site between the sea and the cliffs. Today saw the opening of the first part of the Eco Hub at Durley Chine.
It is constructed out of recycled wood (some of which has spent the last fifteen or twenty years as groynes submerged in the sea.) and sustainable concrete. There are ev panels on the roof of the main building. Over the café area there is a planted roof and all sorts of recycled details (including in the loos where plastic bottle tops have made the wipe down surfaces).
The green roof and ground level areas are planted with local species. Later will come the class rooms and the recycling hub itself but what is exciting is the architecture. Designed brilliantly by locally based Footprints Architecture Practice it is an structure open to the cliff and the views of the goats on one side and panels that open to the beach and the sea on the other. It is designed so anyone drinking their coffee at the windows can take in the whole of the bay from the Isle of Wight to Old Harry. But it is the structure and materials itself that demonstrate the care that the architects have taken. Huge v shaped wooden beams stretch up from floor to roof giving a forest effect and which seem to take their cue from the trees on the West Cliff Green above.
Any enclosures are made of boards loosely jointed so the sun filters through. The whole effect is one of light and shadow and wanderers walking the length of the café area are passing in and out of the chiaroscuro making a dramatic installation. Because it’s not fully enclosed it does indeed make a clever link between the inside and outside spaces.
This is the place to sit and watch or write or paint or draw and I sincerely hope that there will be many of the Bournemouth Creatives who will be joining me there to while away an hour or two. Oh And the coffee is reasonably priced and the vegetarian and vegan cakes and other victuals look delicious.
