The structure was originally built for the Ecobuild exhibition at Earls Court in February 2008. It was conceived both as exhibition space and as a provocation about the technical and poetic possibilities of timber construction. Constructed from Kerto S composite timber elements donated by Finnforest, it was clad internally in 12mm plywood to create a materially rich sculptural interior. An abstraction of the archetypal timber dwelling, the structure drew its language of exposed timber framework from Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photographs of framework houses in the Rhineland.
As witnesses to the waste left discarded in the exhibition hall after Ecobuild had finished, we became determined to re-use the material or the building as a whole. Subsequently we met with artists Rut Blees Luxemburg and Hilary Koob-Sassen, and agreed to rebuild it for them in Hadspen, Somerset. In June 2008, the structure was transported by lorry, reassembled and added to, thereby transforming the structure into a visually and thermally warm space inside of an existing agricultural shed.
