'The provision of a new infrastructures of leisure, work and ecology in South Devon.'

Outside is a rural community development in South Devon, near to Bantham beach.
Part farm, part leisure facility, part workspace, it provides missing pieces to the area’s social and economic life. IDK have worked with the client to deliver an ambitious landscape scheme along with the renovation of an existing barn on the site. The two-acre plot will provide space for skateboarding, small scale farming, reforestation, play and (importantly) football. The barn hosts a cafe, ceramics studios and surf board shaping workshops. Critical to ensuring the right mix of uses we developed the design through community consultation and careful strategic planning with the client and their networks. Generating huge local support for this facility was critical in securing planning permission for the project. Being sited in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, where near-barren arable monocultures are often preferred over mixed use regenerative practices, the project serves as a case study for new forms of hyperlocal, sustainable rural development.

New build / Community & Rural regeneration
Devon
2017-2022
Collaborators: Chris Hodgson Engineering, NR Structures, Jonny Stillwell, Wychwood Biodiversity, Mark Evans Planning Ltd
Photography: Toby Coulson

Shortlisted for RIBA J MacEwen Award 2023
Winner GAGA Sustainability Award 2023