Selected by ArchDaily as one of the Best New Practices of 2024, IDK is injecting a fresh and dynamic approach to building communities with quality architecture. Mike Lim, James Pockson and Roddy Bow met while studying for their master's degree in Architecture at the Royal College of Art (RCA and founded their architecture practice, IDK in London in 2019. The three, driven by a strong mission, to help communities and progressive institutions, organizations and cultures thrive – have been researching and delivering community-oriented projects that embody experimental building with a holistic approach. Their work focuses on nurturing social development, with an emphasis on ecological awareness, local material use, smart resource and budget management, respectful refurbishments, and designing only what is necessary without "over-building."
The studio operates much like the way they approach all of their projects—through constant collaboration. With a core team of seven members, IDK also brings in various specialists to work with them on each project. Key to the ethos of IDK is that we don’t have all the answers all the time. We think there’s power in acknowledging that as it pushes us to be open and collaborative in a way that enriches the work. In addition to their built projects, which range from small local interventions and exhibitions to refurbishments and mix used medium-scale developments, IDK has several research works and unbuilt projects that also reflect their unique approach to space-making: collective and participatory thinking that unites communities in need of specific programs, leading to honest, responsible and often playful architecture.
We rely on each other enormously and that baseline is essential to being able to build together. We also want to enjoy what we do and, dare we say it, have fun. It’s a special thing, to be able to share that with each other.
In conversation with ArchDaily, the team of IDK expands on the idea of social development through architecture, building for and with the communities, and their methods and approaches to creating meaningful spaces.
ArchDaily (Paula Pintos) When did your journey of building community through architecture begin? Can you point to a specific project that marked this beginning?
(IDK) We’ve seen building community and architecture as fundamentally the same thing from the start. All of us came to IDK with a strong sense of social responsibility and ultimately, our work is in service of the communities, audiences, and clients that our projects support. It was important to us from the outset that we were building IDK to deliver work with social value and purpose.
Seeing the hugely positive effect of our Outside project on the community since it opened has definitely felt big, but there hasn’t really been a single project or moment. What we think is important has evolved as we’ve learned how our work, our processes, and outcomes, can have a real impact.
(AD) Your works are places that bring together local diversity and include varied programs. Can you describe your design process from a project's conception? What are your sources of inspiration?
(IDK) We like our work to feel like it makes sense. We’re analytical and pragmatic, which comes from our backgrounds and the practices we’ve worked for, and we share a strong belief in value and economy as factors that drive design. The first thing we do on receiving a brief is interrogate it. By unpicking the brief in detail, we’re able to look for value-led creative or innovative solutions. If we can help our clients understand there might be routes to achieving their goals that don’t require high cost, high risk, carbon-intensive, new-build construction, we see that as a huge positive. It’s important that when we make the case for building new, we can really justify it.
A big part of our process is engaging and speaking with the user groups, audiences, and communities that actively shape any project. We invest heavily in early-stage conversations to really try to understand the needs, ambitions (and tensions) of a project. Once we have that clarity, we place a strong emphasis on simplicity and direct design. While we don’t believe in over-designing a solution, we work hard to test options and iterate. Quite often it brings us back to the simplest starting point, but we feel a responsibility to thoroughly question our own ideas before realizing them.
Another big part of our process is data-led. We’re committed to using measurement and data collection as tools for informing ongoing design processes – specifically with our retrofit projects that are often delivered in phases. We are very lucky to work with Structure Workshop which has developed its own full-life carbon calculator which gives us empirical carbon data throughout the design phases of a project. All of this allows us to be responsible and precise with our proposals and with our client’s budgets and their assets.
(AD) Most of your projects involve collaboration with different groups and organizations. Do you have a "guide" or framework that helps you navigate these workflows? How do you approach these collaborations?
(IDK) We believe in genuine collaboration and partnership and aim to be very open and transparent. As individuals within the practice, we know what our own skills are and depend on each other to complement, support and push our work as a collective. The same applies to the groups, teams, individuals, specialists, fabricators, consultants, researchers, makers and suppliers who we work with.
We have all experienced quite attritional construction environments and know it’s not beneficial for the work, so we aim to empower our teams to create ownership and pride in what we do and create. Since each project is unique, and each team has its own distinct composition, it is important to be agile across our own ways of working. We’re constantly learning from our experiences.
(AD) The choice of materials in your projects reflects an awareness of environmentally responsible and respectful construction. What guides your decisions regarding materiality, local resources, and material reuse?
(IDK) We think sustainability is as much a socio-economic issue as it is a physical and environmental concern: it naturally extends to supporting local economies, using local labor and supply chains, and building strong and resilient communities that can support themselves and each other.
Outside Devon is a really great example of this, as was our proposal for a low-carbon warehouse structure, the outcome of which was simply to recommend our client buy a second-hand steel frame off eBay from 20 miles down the road. Work like this underlines the importance of thinking and designing for maintenance, longevity, deconstruction, and future reuse. We find these critical factors are sometimes overlooked in favor of making an instinctive leap for in-vogue natural building materials but we think it’s essential to look further ahead.
(AD) How does Outside Project, built with community collaboration and offering various programs, demonstrate a successful approach to sustainable and local development in the area?
(IDK) One of the key things with Outside was our relationship with the community and the client. The team involved grew up in the area and had an existing connection to the location and people around it. This link meant that from the outset we had a foundation of genuine understanding to build upon, and it allowed us to develop a nuanced program of the kind that we all feel is lacking in rural contexts such as this.
Building the community of supporters and collaborators was essential in proving the need for the project. It helped support the case through planning and established it on a strong footing for moving forward. The network helped build the project, source materials and expertise through local supply chains and created space for genuine dialogue and collaboration through its design and construction.
The Outside Project is a work in progress, and its growing network continues this incremental and collaborative approach to design and building – which empowers the client while welcoming even more people to become part of it. Having been open for two years now, it's really interesting to see which things have and haven’t worked on the site, as well as the project's capacity to change and evolve in response to the community around it.
