Backyard Community Club

In Accra, where public investment in recreational space is scarce and green space rarer still, Backyard Community Club proposes a new model. Designed by DeRoche Projects, it is the first project in Ghana to be built using a precast rammed earth system—an innovative construction method pioneered by the studio to reimagine an ancestral material for scalable, contemporary use. This process innovation makes replication possible; the resulting space makes impact tangible. Built on a compact urban plot in the dense neighborhood of Osu, the court is not simply a sports facility—it is a prototype for a new kind of youth-centered community space where training, growing, gathering, and learning take place side by side. Backyard responds to a clear-eyed recognition of what is missing from Ghana’s civic landscape: youth-centered, high-quality spaces for sport and community. Rather than replicating exclusionary or imported models, DeRoche Projects reclaims the clay court as a platform for holistic development where athletic training, shared learning, and cultural pride come together. It’s about more than sport, it’s about possibility.

Backyard refuses the logic of hand-me-down space. It is neither charity nor ornament. It is an ode to a new future. A provocation that challenges the assumption that youth spaces in Ghana must be improvised, neglected, or second-rate. It is radically generous in its ambition, grounded in process innovation, and built from local materials.

Facilities
The court, built to international specifications provides youth under 18 in Ghana with a professional-grade training environment—exceptional in a city where most sports programming unfolds on uneven or improvised surfaces. This best-in-class surface prepares young athletes for global play. A shaded, built-in floating bench allows players and spectators alike to observe, rest, or review drills. Wrapped by a rhythmic enclosure of 4-meter-high precast rammed earth panels, the court is both sheltering and open. This locally fabricated envelope provides privacy without isolation, offering porosity and visual connectivity.

Sustenance, Stewardship, and Self-Reliance
Surrounding the court is a sustenance garden: over 20 species of edible and medicinal plants cultivated not for appearance, but for performance. Guava, lemongrass, peppermint, soursop, coconut, and blue pea flower were selected for their health and recovery properties—nourishing the young athletes who train here. This is not decorative landscaping. It is a living, breathing support system. Youth learn to tend the land as they train on it, harvesting ingredients for fresh juices, post-practice snacks, and community meals. The act of growing becomes part of the rhythm of play, embedding values of self-reliance, responsibility, and ecological awareness into daily routines. In peak season, excess produce is shared with the surrounding community, extending the project’s ethos beyond its boundaries.

Multiplicity of Use
Beyond training hours, the court becomes a shared resource: a setting for morning workouts, afternoon gardening, weekend produce exchanges, and nighttime gatherings under the stars. Capable of transforming into an outdoor screening room, the court also hosts group viewings of professional tournaments—providing a form of sports education otherwise inaccessible to many due to infrastructure constraints. Ancillary spaces—including changing rooms, shaded seating, outdoor prep counters, and a barbecue zone—are discreetly integrated into the site. These enable a wide range of uses—from informal team breakfasts to fundraising dinners to juice shared with guests after practice. Even the showers reflect Backyard’s ethos of care and intention—designed with a biophilic sensibility, they are naturally lit, minimally detailed, and anchored by a planted niche that brings the landscape into moments of rest and daily routine.

Pioneering Ghana’s First Precast Rammed Earth System
Making good on our commitment to material and process innovation, DeRoche Projects developed Ghana’s first-ever precast rammed earth panel system—redefining what’s possible with local materials. This breakthrough merges ancestral knowledge with contemporary fabrication to set a new benchmark not only for design, but for delivery. Traditional rammed earth construction is slow, labor-intensive, and weather-dependent—factors that have long limited its use in commercial or community-scale projects. Our system bypasses these limitations through off-site fabrication, enabling advanced quality control, tighter structural tolerances, and parallel workstreams between site prep and panel production. The result is a modular, climate-responsive, and replicable system tailored to the realities of Ghanaian transport, labor, and climate—delivered with greater speed, less waste, and a fraction of the embodied carbon of concrete. More than a construction method, it is a new framework for building from the ground up—with the ground itself.

Sustainability
In line with DeRoche Projects’ commitment to environmentally responsive design, this project integrates a range of sustainable strategies throughout. The project champions local, low-carbon building materials and systems, with rammed earth construction to enclose the clay court. As clay courts require a lot of water to keep its performance for play, a borehole system and redirected stormwater runoff provide irrigation for the clay court and landscaped areas, reducing reliance on municipal water and supporting resilient, drought-tolerant planting. An earth slurry finish replaces traditional cementitious renders, offering a breathable, low-impact alternative that further reduces embodied carbon. The ancillary structures are designed to function without air conditioning or mechanical extraction, instead relying on the stack effect for passive ventilation and abundant natural light—minimizing energy demand and reducing dependence on the main grid.