An Arts Park for the Dartington Estate
As part of the final phase of feasibility study Ash Sakula architects have been appointed to carry out a feasibility study for a new Welcome Centre and Ideas Laboratory at Dartington.
The Dartington Hall Trust proposal to become an Arts Park reinterprets, for the 21st century, the vision of Dartington’s founders, Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst.
Dartington is set to become a centre where arts-based enterprises can develop their practice. It would be the first rural arts park of its kind in the UK, providing much needed support for the region’s creative talent and businesses, and for new international collaborations.
The Dartington Hall Trust is committed to developing new models of educational, cultural and social patterns of living within the contexts of a global world view, and the rural locality of the Dartington Hall estate in South Devon. The aims of the Trust are realised through several strands of activity encompassing the arts, ecology, social justice and commercial enterprise.
The Trust has an international reputation as a pioneering organisation that provides support and inspiration for people engaging in creative practices and innovative work. It is also the custodian of a remarkable country Estate that is constantly evolving, where history meets challenging and new ideas.
The architects ASH SAKULA have been appointed to carry out a feasibility study for a Welcome Centre and Ideas Laboratory on the Dartington Hall Estate. This project is the first phase of the Trust’s development of the Estate as an Arts Park and international centre for the creation of new work. The Welcome Centre and Ideas Laboratory are being designed as the main area of arrival and circulation on the Estate and, if built, will also provide state-of-the-art accommodation for artists and creative businesses (both residential and visiting). The Welcome Centre would be a catalyst for wider estate regeneration.
This feasibility study will prepare the ground for a new, architecturally distinctive building and landscape at the heart of the Estate. The site is at the entrance to the central area of the Estate, opposite the entrance to the 14th century courtyard.
Funding for this design phase is provided by the Objective Two European Regional Development Fund programme through Government Office South West, together with financial assistance from Devon County Council and South Hams District Council.
The Welcome Centre and Ideas Laboratory would include:
- Reception and Café
- Event and Exhibition Space
- Meeting and Training Rooms
- Amenity Space – a ‘creative village’ at the hub of the estate.
- Research and Innovation Environment to include editing suite, radio studio, a small recording studio and a black box facility for small scale film and sound recording.
- Incubation and Business Units
The building would accommodate some anchor tenants, actively sought by Dartington because of their synergy with the mission of the Arts Park. Other tenants may be local creative businesses and artists practising in a variety of media.
The Ash Sakula building design will have a quality suited to its role as centre of innovation. It will relate sensitively to the Medieval, Arts & Crafts and Modernist buildings on the Estate; and will exemplify Dartington and Schumacher College’s commitment to sustainability, by maximising the use of renewable energy sources, management of water efficiency and new energy saving technology. The study will establish appropriate measurable performance criteria for sustainability.
ASH SAKULA ARCHITECTS are leaders in the field of creative design solutions. They are engaged in a wide range of projects in Britain and overseas, including regeneration, the arts, creative industries, housing and public spaces.
“For creative projects, you need creative architects and they don’t come more creative than Ash Sakula,” – The Times
“Projects to lift the spirits… where ingenuity and new technology are brilliantly combined” – The Independent
“Inspired,” – The Guardian
DARTINGTON: ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY
In 1925, Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst bought the Dartington Hall Estate as a home, and the setting for their ‘Dartington experiment’. They renovated the magnificent, but derelict medieval Hall and its courtyard (circa 1400) and began promoting innovative, rural reconstruction in what was then a depressed area of the country. The Hall and surrounding buildings currently represent the centre of the Estate and Dartington’s activities.
The Elmhirsts, with their chosen architects and designers, extended the Dartington Estate and its properties. The international architect William Lescaze designed the notable Modernist buildings; and the Elmhirsts also commissioned Oswald Milne to design Arts & Crafts inspired properties – a bold experiment in mixing architectural styles. The Barn Theatre, currently used for film screenings, small scale theatre and opera, was converted from an earlier building by Walter Gropius and Robert Henning in 1933–38. The Cider Press Centre, now a centre for ethical retail was built by Rex Gardiner in 1928. As the Estate architect, he was also responsible for the renovation of the Old Postern, a former residence, now home to Schumacher College, a centre for sustainable development.
Forty-two buildings or features on the Estate are listed as being of exceptional historical and architectural significance. These are sited within historic gardens of outstanding beauty, surrounded by over seven hundred acres of farmland and mature woodland.
THE ARTS PARK project is led by Matt Griffiths, Director of Dartington Plus.
DARTINGTON PLUS
Dartington Plus is the umbrella organisation for the Arts at Dartington, and is delivered through a partnership between The Dartington Hall Trust, Dartington College of Arts, and King Edward VI Community College (KEVICC). Dartington Plus is designated as one of three national centres of excellence in music and the arts. It has a particular focus on music and works in three main areas: Education, Enterprise and Performance & Production. www.dartingtonplus.org.uk