For the team at ECE Architecture, Worthing isn’t just a business address. It’s home. This June, that sense of belonging found a new form.
An idea worth revisiting
Back in 2015, ECE’s original mirrored beach hut stopped people in their tracks on the Worthing seafront. It became one of those quietly memorable things a town holds onto. More than a decade later, the team decided to bring the idea back, not as a repeat, but as something altogether more playful.
“This isn’t about repeating something old,” says Stuart Eatock, Managing Director at ECE Architecture. “It’s about evolving it into something playful, something very us, and something the town can genuinely connect with again.”
Three huts, one town
The result was ‘A piECE of Our Mind’, a voluntary contribution to Worthing Festival 2026. Three miniature mirrored beach huts appeared at unexpected locations across the town throughout June, each one moving to a new spot as the festival progressed. Every discovery was its own small moment; an invitation to pause, look a little closer, and see a familiar place in a different light.
Architects with their sleeves rolled up
What set this project apart was how it came to life. Rather than commissioning the work, ECE’s architects drew up the plans, sourced materials from Covers Timber & Builders Merchants in Bognor Regis, and built the huts themselves. It was a different kind of design challenge, one that took the team well outside their usual process and asked them to apply their skills in a much more hands-on way.
The town took notice
The installation resonated beyond ECE’s own networks. Stuart Eatock was invited to speak on BBC Sussex radio about the project, and the story was featured in What’s Happening in Sussex. For a small, volunteer-led piece of work, that kind of reach said something.
Rooted in Worthing
ECE has called Worthing home for decades, with its studio sitting right on the seafront. ‘A piECE of our Mind’ was never really about buildings. It was about people, and about finding a small, considered way to give something back to the town that has given so much to the practice in return.
Watch our video below and see the huts come to life.
