Hooke Park, Dorset

The annual SummerMAKE course is a two-week opportunity to engage in a ‘live’ architecture project at Hooke Park. The programme provides hands on workshop-driven engagement with design and production methods, leading to a built, full-scale architectural intervention using timber sourced from the surrounding 350-acre woodland.

Participants get to live in the Edward Cullinan-designed lodge, work in the ABK/Frei Otto-designed workshop and eat in the refectory, also designed by Frei Otto. The theme last year was ‘Symphony: in search of Timbre in Timber’ in which participants designed and built three automated acoustic instruments to play a symphony that continues in the forest today. Performing on strings is the ‘Monster of Hooke’, a wind-driven intonarumori; a string section is provided by ‘Mystery Bellows’, a human-triggered marimba and thunder-tube; and on percussion is the ‘Water Logs’, a water-powered mechanical log drum and water phone.