Bartlett architects explore relationship between nature and artifice

UCL Bartlett School of Architecture staff and alumni have created a steel shelter that explores the shifting relationship between the natural and the artificial. Architectural consultancy sixteen*(makers) collaborated with German steel manufacturer Stahlbogen GmbH to make the shelter for visitors to Kielder Water and Forest Park in Northumberland. The UCL staff behind sixteen*(makers) are Bob Sheil, Dr Phil Ayres, Chris Leung and Emmanuel Vercruysse, while founder member and former Bartlett student Nick Callicott is co-proprietor and director of Stahlbogen GmbH. Their creation ? known as '55/02', a reference to the longitude and latitude of its location on the park's Lakeside Way  ? is formed from panels of steel joined to create a series of alcoves. It has a large door on runners that can be pulled shut or positioned to form an open series of seats and windbreaks, or a smaller weatherproof pod, and handholds that encourage agile visitors to clamber over it like a climbing frame. Bob Sheil is director of the Graduate Diploma in Architecture at the Bartlett, where he oversees the school's new Digital Manufacturing Centre. He said: "For the practice '55/02' marks the latest manifestation of many years of tacit experimentation, training and collaboration in design and manufacturing processes fuelled by a fascination with making and the ever increasing synthesis of digital design and manufacturing techniques.