Overview

Churchhill Gardens, Boscombe is a very well used park, with its own community engagement facilitator. It is part of the Aspire project – a pan-European health and wellbeing initative - and C3 Collaborating for Health.

As part of its action plan, the local community wanted a shelter as a space to rest, relax and connect with others. Handspring’s Large Onion was chosen for this purpose.

Work undertaken

As soon as Handspring arrived on site, the local community was involved and helped with digging in the base, and a constant stream of people appeared throughout the day to see how the project was going.

Level access was requested so Handspring made a change to the usual oak base of the shelter, and designed a steel ring beam with brackets to take the ribs. This ring beam was set flush with the grass, and has four anchors buried deeper into the ground, avoiding the need for any concrete. This will feature again on a number of upcoming shelters, and adds a durable robust base option to the Apple and Onion Shelter range.

The middle of the roof was left open to discourage the space from being used in all weathers; this also allows the ribs to rise up through it and finish with a flourish as an ‘eye of heaven’ or ‘wheel to the stars’.

As with lots of the Handspring's projects, a wildflower meadow was added to the top, adding in nature.