Prototype House

Used today as Hooke Park’s Refectory, the Prototype House was conceived as a house for staff accommodation and as a prototype for a new form of low cost rural housing using construction material from the immediate locality. Constructed of spruce thinnings from Hooke Park, for a cost of £50,000, the building demonstrates the novel use of timber in tension in its roof. The Prototype House was the first building erected on the Hooke Park campus. John Makepeace, founder of the Parnham Trust, approached Frei Otto for advice on how best to use Hooke Park’s material; Otto suggested bringing in Richard Burton as co-designer.