{"id":10541,"date":"2025-11-27T10:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T11:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rutha.org\/?p=10541"},"modified":"2025-11-28T12:25:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T12:25:55","slug":"hand-cleft-oak-shingles-cloak-wellbeing-centre-in-hertfordshire-by-okra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rutha.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/27\/hand-cleft-oak-shingles-cloak-wellbeing-centre-in-hertfordshire-by-okra\/","title":{"rendered":"Hand-cleft oak shingles cloak wellbeing centre in Hertfordshire by Okra"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/div>\n

Irregular oak shingles<\/a> that double as habitats for bugs and bats cover the exterior of The Apple House, an education<\/a> and wellbeing hub in Hertfordshire, UK<\/a>, by London design collective Okra.<\/span><\/p>\n

Located in Serge Hill, The Apple House is designed for local community interest company The Serge Hill Project, which aims to demonstrate how people’s lives and wellbeing can be transformed through working with nature.<\/p>\n

\"Exterior
Okra has completed an education and wellbeing hub in Hertfordshire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Housed within the centre’s barn-like volume is a multi-purpose learning and workshop space, a kitchen and an office, which overlook a vegetable garden and educational “plant library” through large windows.<\/p>\n

Okra<\/a> chose the rough, hand-cleft oak shingles to cover the exterior of The Apple House as part of a material palette that looked to showcase the potential of local, natural materials, including a spruce timber frame, hempcrete and clay and straw bricks.<\/p>\n

\"The
The centre is held within a barn-like volume<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The project was recently shortlisted in the leisure and wellness project<\/a> category of Dezeen Awards 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We wanted to explore what could be done with natural materials immediately available to the site in a way that is resourceful, practical and beautiful,” Okra co-founder Ben Stuart-Smith told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

\"Shingle-clad
Oak shingles double as habitats for bugs and bats<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Above ground and excluding its corrugated aluminium roof, The Apple House is made entirely from natural materials,” added Stuart-Smith.<\/p>\n

“It takes a traditional barn form with a 45-degree-pitch black corrugated roof, meaning that from afar it looks like a typical agricultural building. But as you approach, the building is revealed as something more complex, crafted and expressive.”<\/p>\n

\"Kitchen
Folding wooden doors divide the kitchen from the multi-purpose hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The external shingles of The Apple House were all created from oak trees felled in nearby overcrowded areas, cut to lengths that could be processed entirely by hand. The gaps created by the wavy, irregular forms of the shingles double as habitats for bugs and bats.<\/p>\n

These shingles cloak a spruce frame that forms the building’s structure, infilled with hempcrete to create its external walls. Internal partitions were created using birch ply panels, incorporating a large storage wall behind the kitchen.<\/p>\n