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The design aims to relate the built environment to the wider environment as a whole. The building itself is an education tool, it overtly expresses the processes that enabled it to function, both structurally and environmentally. The building is like a metabolism, it's expression falls between botany and geology.

The building's structure takes its cues from the estuarine nature of the landscape around Hull. The building floats on a raft of timber floor cassettes supported by pre-cast concrete pad foundations bearing down onto the hardcore and estuarine mud found on the site. The building is formed from a kit of parts that can be assembled and re-assembled on future sites.

The building is powered by renewable energy sources and an array of wind turbines and photovoltaics stand outside the front of the building like a mechanical garden.

Chris Hay, the client sponsor, said ‘Arc asked for a symbol of Hull’s regeneration and received a project which both expresses the spirit of the place and the aspirations of the client and the broader community’.

Revd Michael Hills, local community leader said, “This community is consulted to death … we are asked for our views on almost everything, and mostly nothing ever happens. Here, for the first time, we can see how the communities’ concerns have been reflected in an actual proposal... you asked for our stories of Hull and we can see them in this building and we think it’s beautiful … It is the best piece of consultation we have ever had in the area…’