Hastings Longhouse
Design
June 2025
The Hastings Longhouse is an oyster harvesting station located on The Stade of Hastings, a historical beach-launched fishing port under stress due to contemporary challenges within the industry. As expressed by local fishermen; “the loss of fishing hurts not only the town’s economy, but more so the local culture that embraced it so dearly.”
In response to inevitable realities with fishing’s decline, the architecture seeks to embed new processes with oysters whilst celebrating old rituals in fishing.
Two seasonal programmes are engaged by the building; Harvesting oysters from the sea to activate a market reminiscent of local fishmonger stalls, and giving back to the sea through its secondary programme as a artificial reef foundry using the excrement of waste shells.
This symbiotic schedule brings in the community in an act of remembering, an act of gathering, and an act of re-writing The Stade as a sacred space. The oyster longhouse questions how we can take a necessary step towards the new whilst hanging tightly to the things most precious from the past.