‘ The reuse and extension of existing buildings to create the Camber Sands Welcome Centre by DK-CM sets a paradigm for public building in the time of the climate emergency.’ – Eleanor Beaumont, Architectural Review, February 2026.

Camber Sands Welcome Centre is a sustainable combination of retrofit and new-build which provides hireable space for the local community, a cafe, space for the RNLI, council amenities, and public toilets to Camber Sands beach and its often 25,000 daily visitors.

The brief for the Welcome Centre was developed with Rother District Council and DK-CM working closely together, with the design team helping develop the rationale for the building’s programme, exact location, and scope during the early phases of the project. We then developed a design which makes the most of the existing masonry walls of the former toilet block, but adds a timber extension and new timber roof structure. The Welcome Centre is one of the first public buildings in the UK which is made of a timber structure and wood fibre insulation. This approach has resulted in a very sustainable building with extremely low-emobodied carbon, alongside an EPC Rating of A.

The cladding and structure of the building was specified as Sweet Chestnut to make the most of local timber supplies, whilst all detailing was designed to be as robust as possible to ensure minimal maintenance costs for the local council. DK-CM worked with Buckland Timber, a well renowned manufacturer of glulam timber structures to ensure that the new roof over the existing buildings could be constructed as quickly as possible. The building demonstrates a varied use of timber construction techniques: traditional timber framing, contemporary off-site glulam construction (in Douglas Fir), and innovative cladding arrangements (Sweet Chestnut, with exposed counter-battens).

The project benefitted from a detailed material audit by local subconsultants Local Works, and also from an extensive season of public and stakeholder engagement activities which brought local historians, ecologists and members of the public together to explore the past, present and future of this new unique social and ecological landscape.