SELF BUILD
Lost & Found
Lost & Found is an ongoing series of collaborative projects, where Hugo Keene & Matt Chan, along with other skilled professionals, challenge students to design and build innovative useful structures almost entirely from scrap, salvaged, up-cycled and re-purposed materials.
The projects typically take place over 2-3 weeks and include collection, sorting, design and construction. Students are tasked with designing with what is at hand and understanding how these material can form a useful kit of parts. In addition to useful skills and technical understanding of how buildings are made, students learn about being resourceful and minimising waste through design.
For information on how to get your students or community involved in one of these projects, please contact us.
Lost & Found I - Poo With A View
2014
Pembrokeshire, Wales
Complete
Two composting toilets built on the northern flank of Mynydd Carningli with views of Dinas Island and Cardigan Bay. The project was built as the first sheltered facilities for a developing small holding, so there was no power on site and everything needed to be sawn, hammered and assembled by hand. This circumstance gave rise to the stacked timber construction, which enabled us to utilise large quantities of small section low quality scrap timber we had collected.
Inspired by and built entirely from construction waste collected from our own projects, local manufacturers, demolitions and even some fly tipping. Built in sometimes quite wild and woolly weather at the base of a mountain.
Collaborators - Matt Chan
Students - Alexander Davidson, Alexandru Ticalo, Andrzej Bak, Desislava Gencheva, Dina Feddah, Emily Harries, Hollie Jones, Jessica Hartshorne, Joshua Peasley, Mingyue Hai, Shadi Al-Begain, Sofia Chrysanthou
Lost & Found II - Poo With A View Too
2015
Somerset, England
Complete
Pursuing a future as latrine specialists, we traveled across the border and proceeded to build another set of composting toilets for a timber yard and carpenters workshop. With access to better quality and more useful scrap timber, as well as the existing facilities, allowed us to produce a more traditionally framed structure, experimenting with different cladding techniques and making use of a variety of colourful and unusual materials.
Collaborators - Matt Chan, Francesca Loam
Students - Sofia Chrysanthou; Hollie Jones; Joshua Peasley, Alden Ching, David Clark, Fiona Fearnley, Genevieve Gorham, Eleanor Hall, Ioannis Saravelos, Ahad Sheikh, Harry Thorpe, Harriet Walton
Lost & Found III - Kings Road Mews
2016
Cardiff, Wales
Complete
An outdoor structure for a new coffee shop in a commercial mews in the heart of the Canton area of Cardiff. The brief was for a rain-protected seating area, that would create something special but robust, in an area that had to oscillate between a weekday commercial driveway and weekend marketplace/festival zone.
For this project, we adapted an existing treated timber base to add a structure designed to maximise a very limited quantity of useful high quality but slightly defective timber. A challenging project to build while negotiating and maintaining through access for the adjacent brewery and joinery workshop.
Collaborators - Matt Chan
Students - Ahad Sheikh, Alexander Toohey, Alister Webb, Anna Highfield, Fiona Shaw, Ioannis Saravelos, Harriet Walton, Laura Selwood, Lauren Bearman, Lydia Wozniak, Matthew Knivett, Rosie Hanks, Sophie Thomas-Lacroix, Vivie Gorham.
Lost & Found IV - Lufkin Coffee / Lindyhop Cardiff
2016
Cardiff, Wales
Complete
A shared-use fit-out for a coffee shop and dance studio. The requirement was for secure storage that could allow the space to be quickly and efficiently changed from tables and chairs to a clear dance space.
The interior space was completely renovated with the facade, floor, and joinery fit-out done over two weeks. The doors and windows were designed and built from scratch, to fit the existing opening, around the salvaged double glazing units we had collected.
Collaborators - Matt Chan
Students - Ahad Sheikh, Alexander Toohey, Alister Webb, Anna Highfield, Fiona Shaw, Ioannis Saravelos, Harriet Walton, Laura Selwood, Lauren Bearman, Lydia Wozniak, Matthew Knivett, Rosie Hanks, Sophie Thomas-Lacroix, Vivie Gorham.
Lost & Found V - Woody
2017
South Wales, Wales
Complete
A fully insulated cabin in the woods, built to provide a useful, warm and versatile sleeping space. A single room, which turns its back on the adajcent access path, with views out across rolling Welsh hills and into the woodland in which it rests.
Built almost entirely from agricultural scrap materials collected from around the rural property on which it is based.
Collaborators - Matt Chan (L&F), James Usherwood, Francesca Loam,
Students - Ana Baltac, Ana-Maria Arhire, Anna-Maria Tzaneva, Lucas Cheng, Cira Oller Tovar, Constantina Charalambous, Diana Belomorska, Erika Salleh, Hannes Schewe, Lydia Winthorpe, Max White, Jack Cowdrey, Prerit Kularia, Samuel Pywell, Janet Vutcheva
Lost & Found VI - Global Gardens
2018
Cardiff, Wales
Complete
A different kind of Lost and Found project. This time we engaged with a larger group of less experienced students, to rescue and rejuvenate an old concrete structure which had been used as a tipping ground for a local allotment for many years. In addition, a large quantity of heavy timber had been donated.
Initial design, strategy and structural framing were completed by L&F, with later cladding stages completed by students under WSA tutor supervision. The structure was damaged in Storm Denis and will have the cladding and sub framing replaced and upgraded at a later date.
Collaborators - Matt Chan, Sergio Pineda
Students - 2018 WSA 1st Year Group
Lost & Found VII - WSA Pavilion
2018
Cardiff, Wales
Complete
A folly designed for sitting in, designed to provide to frame viewpoints and provide internal and external opportunities for passing people to sit and reflect. Returning to the stacked timber solution, this called for a prefabricated set of frames that could be easily lifted and assembled safely by small teams. This allowed for the project to be built off site and temporarily erected in a public space.
Despite being completed, the project was never fully erected for display due to problematic internal institutional politics and was later dismantled.
Collaborators - Matt Chan
Students - Phoebe Harris, Maddie Rogers, Nick Cross, Prerit Kularia, Irina Gherman, Qamarina Nor’azmam, Rose Nicholson, Ana-Maria Tirlea, Hana Rowlands, Niamh Thornton, Darja Berkovic, Yilin Wang, Aidana Roberts, Kristiana Ustuba, Oana Theodora Stefan
Studio in the Woods
2008 - 2013
Various Locations, United Kingdom
Complete
A variety of structures built with students in various woodland locations. Testing of simple construction principles like cantilever, framing, timber jointing, weathering and timber knowledge. Expressive, expedient joyful. Each structure was built over three days with the assistance of approximately a dozen students.
The experience as a tutor at Studio in the Woods has formed the basis for the Lost & Found construction teaching programme.
Collaborators - Piers Taylor, Meredith Bowles, Toby Maclean, Kate Darby, Gianni Botsford, Susanne Tutsch, Barbara Kaucky, Toby Lewis, Je Ahn