Project: SEE MONSTER
Award: Adaptive Reuse - Big, Gold, 2023
Location: Weston-super-Mare, United Kingdom
Architect: NEWSUBSTANCE
Client: UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK
SEE MONSTER was part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, a festival designed to showcase cross-sector collaboration across Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths (STEAM), and to demonstrate the importance of creativity in people’s lives. NEWSUBSTANCE transformed a retired rig from the North Sea into one of the UK’s largest public art installations. The repurposed rig became a temporary pavilion on the UK coast, designed to inspire conversations about reuse of industrial structures.
Attracting half a million visitors from September to November 2022, the 35-metre-tall structure features four innovatively designed levels, animated by a 10-metre high waterfall; a slide offering an alternative route through the monster, a kinetic installation forming the monsters’ scales; kinetic wind sculptures; a wild garden of plants and trees; experiments in sustainable energy generation; a seated amphitheatre, and at its base, a broadcast studio.
Design highlights
Visitors move up from ground to cellar deck, entering the industrial first floor of the rig. Every five minutes the Cloud Portal, a sculptural installation suspended from above, comes to life. Powered by high intensity misters, the deck is flooded with clouds, immersing visitors within sporadic bursts of Great British weather. The addition of an architectural suspended walkway creates an alternative wheelchair accessible route from the Cellar Deck to the Garden Lab.
Photo credit: Jack Bolton, Sodium, Creative Solutions