Shadow Hut 2006

Commission proposal by Myfanwy Johns with Architects Kinetic AIU.

Shadow Hut interprets the vernacular beach hut through exploiting its structure, format and skin. Pattern is applied to the surface as a means of defining territory. Just as animal patterns are used as a form of identification and camouflage.

The exterior pattern is created from a thermo-reactive surface that changes colour by applied and reflected heat. The beach-hut becomes an interactive artwork-changing colour by the tactile actions of people and environmental conditions through the seasons. The translucent surface allows daylight to softly permeate the interior of the hut, the pattern offering solar shading. At night the hut becomes a lantern, the pattern becoming a silhouette on the surface.