IDK

IDK worked closely with local residents and the client to deliver this ambitious scheme and on-site hub building. The two-acre plot provides space for skateboarding, small-scale farming, rewilding and play. The building hosts a cafe and event space, ceramics studios and surfboard shaping workshop.
Critical to ensuring the right mix of uses, the design was developed through extensive community consultation and careful strategic planning with the client and their networks. Generating significant local support for this facility was essential 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.

As a key part of the landscape and in the spirit of backyard pool-skating, it was Outside’s ambition to create a singular skate bowl, which would welcome skaters of all ages and abilities. The immense swell of local support for this project highlighted both the popularity of skateboarding as an inclusive sport, and the lack of facilities in rural areas. Over 500 letters backed its planning, and a subsequent crowdfunder for the build raised £60,000 from 300 individual donors. The bowl was built by Opus skateparks, designed by BetongPark and delivered by IDK.  


Project: Outside skate bowl & landscape
Location: Devon
Year: 2022
Type: Rural Regeneration
Surface: 250m2
Collaborators: Betongpark (skatebowl design), Opus Skateparks (skatebowl build), Jonny Stillwell, Wychwood Biodiversity, Mark Evans Planning Ltd, NR Structures, Chris Hodgson Engineering

Awards: GAGA Sustainability award 2023, RIBAJ MacEwan Award Shortlisted, Concrete Society Award 2023