While climate change and the rising sea levels are the biggest concerns to mankind today, architects & designers have constantly been engaged in creating some amazing conceptual designs of underwater habitats. But, is this really the ultimate solution? Is it even feasible? PAD Studio in collaboration with the SPUD Group and artist Stephen Turner have attempted to touch this issue by creating a temporary, energy efficient self-sustaining workspace called the ‘Exbury Egg‘.
The egg shaped, floating structure is built using boat building techniques and local materials features a bed, a desk, a small stove, and a wet room. It will serve as a studio space for artist Stephen Turner where he will spend the next 1 year exploring a more empathic relationship with nature which reveals the precious and transcendent in everyday life. The artwork created will stem from Stephen’s occupation, developing through direct experience an understanding of local natural cycles and processes and the relationship of the environment to the narratives of human activity in the unending calendar of seasonal life.
The ‘Exbury Egg’ adopts the two key premises of ‘Lean, Green and Clean’ and ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’. The potential energy requirements during occupation were calculated by exploring Stephen’s anticipated daily routines, including a consideration of the variations that would result from seasonal differences. Stephen’s requirements for electricity use including electricity for charging items such as a laptop, digital camera and mobile phone will be met using solar energy.
“Climate change is already creating new shorelines and habitats. Established salt marsh is being eroded by a combination of rising sea levels and falling landmass and the entire littoral environment is in a state of flux. The implications for wildlife and for the flora as well as for people are challenging. Raising awareness of the past and the unfolding present of a very special location will be the task, whist living in an ethical relationship with nature and treading as lightly as possible upon the land.” – says Stephen Turner
