THE first of Eastbourne’s iconic beach huts has been unveiled on the beach following on from an ambitious international architectural design competition.

‘What unearthed?’ is one of the winning entries from the competition to create brand new grand designs in a series of iconic seafront landmarks which will be available to hire.

Created by award-winning Irish architect Stephen Foley and fabricated by Kevin Hoy of Cutting Edge UK, the contemporary design was inspired by recent nationally significant archaeological discoveries in Eastbourne, including the Beachy Head Lady.

The winning design has taken root east of the pier on the beach opposite Seahouses Square and offers a light airy space during the day and a ghost-like illumination at night.

Mr Foley, who was given the RIAI Future Award for Emerging Architects, said: “We loved working on this project because it combines a lot of themes in our design research such as identity and technology.

“We worked very closely with the fabricators in order to make it as special as possible and also had input from Heritage Eastbourne.

“It does a lot with very little, responding to the site and brief in a monumental way but also to the budget in terms of being innovative with materials and structure.”