Outside is a rural community development in South Devon. Part farm, part leisure facility, part workspace, it adds to the local area’s social and economic life. The masterplan for the two-acre plot provides space for skateboarding, small-scale farming, orchard, play areas and football, whilst the hub building hosts a cafe and mixed use space, ceramics studios and surfboard shaping workshops. The new building, derived from an existing dilapidated structure, was built by a local agricultural construction company with a client-led self build for the internal spaces. 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.
Architecture studio IDK and the Outside client team completed extensive consultation, generating support for the project from the early stages. Over 500 individual letters of support were submitted by local residents through pre-app and planning and over 150 people attended the online deliberation meeting. The project also raised £60,000 from 300 individual donors through crowd funding to build the skate bowl. IDK occupied a coordinating and facilitating design role from RIBA stage 0-7, with an ethos that sought to deliver maximum impact through minimum means and an approach that celebrated and supported local supply chains throughout the design and procurement of the project.
Outside runs a programme of events and workshops which promote skill sharing, wellbeing and inclusivity. On a daily basis, the cafe, workshops and wider site are open, bringing people together and providing the economic sustainability of the project itself. The skate bowl has been central to the project with a huge uptake amongst young kids in the local area. Having featured in the Olympics for the first time in 2020, there is a growing narrative shift around skateboarding, often linked to antisocial behaviour; it is more and more understood as a truly cross generational and inclusive sport.
The mixed use site looks to encourage cross pollination of individuals and groups with a restored natural ecology; fostering shared and intersectional learning experiences on the way. As the network grows Outside has the capacity to evolve and adapt in the image of the local and wider community which it looks to engage.
