About
FIELD was a temporary co-working incubator space for local entrepreneurs located in part of the site of the Preston Barracks redevelopment in Brighton. The developers U+I Plc ran the initiative and the intention was to use it to explore what Brighton & Hove’s entrepreneurial community needed from a potential permanent facility, which is part of the proposed redevelopment of Preston Barracks.
The current plans for the redevelopment of the Preston Barracks site started in July 2014. This £150 million scheme is part of a wider regeneration project involving neighbouring University land, which aims to transform four hectares of land located to the north of Brighton along Lewis Road – a main artery running into the city centre.
Project details
In 2014 the council exchanged contracts with the University of Brighton and developers U+I Plc. The partners then developed detailed plans in a process that included a number of public consultation events. In September 2017, planning consent was granted.
“The regeneration will ultimately deliver a mixed use quarter with homes and student accommodation, university and business space, and shops and cafes, spread across some 4 hectares. But the process of regeneration and transformation began… [in 2015], with meanwhile use of Preston Barracks.” (2)
As it would take several years to develop the plans and get planning permission for the final development, the developers decided it would be worth finding a way to use the derelict Barracks site in the meantime to start activating the site and exploring the possibilities for its future.
As Sarah Chitty, Development Manager at U+I explains in an interview with Placemaking Resource, “We wanted to find a worthwhile use for the space that would generate genuine value for the local community while we secured planning permission for the final development, so we entered into a lease agreement with the council in 2015…We also wanted to do something intelligent, which would inform and add value to one of the future buildings that would make up part of the final Masterplan proposals.” (2)
The derelict former rifle range building at Preston Barracks was rapidly converted into a community space called FIELD House with workshops, a cafe and a shared events space. The co-working space focused on incubating local entrepreneurs, as there were plans for a permanent 4,600 square metre accelerator/incubator space for start-ups and SMEs within the development.
According to the FIELD website (1), the project had two central aims:
● To empower entrepreneurial makers, inventors, engineers and product designers with the use of a diverse work space
● To unite like-minded people, organisations and businesses to create a community that thrives on the free exchange of ideas between creative innovators and inventors.
Chitty describes the project as a “workplace experiment, setting out to answer the question of what a future employment space looks like in Brighton, and how we could design a building at Preston Barracks that would be successful in the future”. (2)
Eight Brighton start-ups and four local initiatives were hosted in the workshop space rent-free. Applicants were selected based on their use of innovation in design. Each entrepreneur was given a small amount of seed funding to kick-start their business and was supported with development advice. FIELD also provided a home for established local initiatives such the Old Tree botanical brewery. The common area also became a venue for locally led events such as up cycling workshops, community action team meetings and social events.
One of the groups hosted in the space was Community 21 – a collaborative practice initiated by the University of Brighton to get people engaged in community and neighbourhood planning, using fun and accessible tools and technology. They created the Placemaker Space at FIELD where they held workshops to bring planning toolkits to the community.