Activity Centre Reception and Dining Building

New Reception and Refectory Buildings at Dorset Activity Centre

Planning consent has recently been granted for 2 new key buildings at an education and activity centre in Purbeck, Dorset.

The proposal will see the creation of a new teaching and dining space for visitors and staff, along with a new reception building and associated landscape. Buddens activity centre is a large area of sensitive, mixed heathland, unimproved grassland, lakes and woodland and is owned by the Scouts UK and operated by the Rockley, a large outdoor education organisation.

The new camp reception area will serve as a welcome building for all new visitors when arriving at the site. Its position is located to establish a legible ‘welcome’ point for arrivals.

Dorset

Community,
Leisure & Hospitality

On the edge of an adjacent camp field, the siting of the new teaching and dining block was established to provide a strong visual marker; a ‘hub’ for visiting children to be able to orient themselves around the site. This building presents itself as a twin-gable ‘barn drawing on an equestrian barn typology; a familiar reference to form, scale and the type of typical agricultural barn structures commonly seen in the open countryside.

The buildings are designed to harmonise and blend with their countryside and woodland surroundings in a style that reflects a simple rural vernacular, and form part of a wider, master plan of building proposals for this site.

Project sectors

Homes

Conservation & Heritage

Community

Housing

Leisure & Hospitality

Selected Projects