Jamal Joseph The Eden Project

The Eden Project is a major tourist attraction and learning environment. Three quarters of its visitors are on holiday travelling to Cornwall from beyond the South West region of England. The informal learning experiences fashioned for them are intended to offer pleasure, meaning and ecological significance. It strives to reach people by connecting and resonating with their everyday lives in a range of complementary and experimental ways. It is an exercise in edutainment. The Eden Project was founded by Tim Smith and owned by the charity organization Eden Trust, the Project opened fully on 17 March 2001.The Eden Project is situated at a former clay pit, which is now transformed into a flourish garden. The Project consists of several biomes, which houses many plants from different climate regions. Furthermore, the Eden Project takes care of events and educations programs, in order to create a sustainable awareness amongst visitors. The main aim of the Project is to educate the visitors about the importance of the plants so that sustainability becomes a visible item to them, while supporting the local region. In the beginning, The Eden Project was built in a 160-year-old exhausted china clay quarry near St Austell, in Cornwall. It was established as one of the Landmark Millennium Projects to mark the year 2000. In the first two months of construction, an estimate of 43 million gallons of rainwater drained into the pit. This prompted the engineers to come up with a magnificent subterranean drainage system that now collects all the water coming on to the site. They used it to irrigate plants and flush their toilets, while rainwater that falls on the Biomes is used to to maintain the humidity inside the Rainforest Biome. There is a meandering path in the Eden Project with views of the two biomes, planted landscapes, including vegetable gardens, and sculptures that include a giant bee and towering robot created from old electrical appliances. At the bottom of the clay pit are two covered biomes: The Humid Tropics Biome has been created in the World's largest conservatory (240m long, 55m high and 110m wide). The biome houses over 2000 species (such as fruiting banana trees, coffee, rubber and giant bamboo) of carefully selected tropical plants in an environment that allows them to reach their full potential. The soil in the biome is 1m deep and covers an area of 15590 square meters. The air is kept at temperatures varying between 35C and 18C - providing a variety of environmental niches in different areas of the biome. A misting system and a gigantic waterfall, provide the high humidity that the species in the biome require. The Humid Tropics Biome is a place that consists of environments that would be found in the Oceanic Islands, West Africa, Tropical South America and South East Asia. The biome allows visitors to experience the sights and smells from these distant parts of the World and see how the people of those regions, manage their environments - providing for their current needs and conserving the landscape for the future. The Warm Temperate Biome consists of diversity of plant species that have evolved to survive in the semi drought conditions that exist in the Mediterranean Basin, California and South Africa. These are the lands that are hot and dry in summer, have poor, infertile soil and sporadic rains during the winter months. The Outdoor Biome represents the temperate regions of the world with plants such as tea, lavender, hops, hemp and sunflowers. With the help from the Reading University, The Eden Project made over 83,000 tonnes of soil which came from local mine wastes: sand from IMERYS china clay works and clay from WBB Devon Clays Ltd. In the Biomes, composted bark provided the organic matter component because it needed to be long lived. The rapid growers in the Rainforest Biome needed a rich organic soil capable of holding lots of water and nutrients while the slower growers in the drier Mediterranean Biome used a sandy mix which held less of both. A specialist nutrient-free mix was used in the South African Fynbos, where fertile soil is toxic to some of the plants. For Outdoors they used composted domestic green wastes.The covered Biome climates are constantly monitored and are controlled automatically. In the Rainforest Biome automated misters moisten the air (90% relative humidity at night, and down to 60% in the day) and ground-level pipes irrigate the soil. Their huge waterfall uses recycled water and keeps humidity high. The Mediterranean is kept drier where vents are open, even during cool periods, to reduce humidity and therefore fungal problems. The main heating source for both Biomes is the sun. The back wall acts as a heat bank, releasing warmth at night. The two layers of air in the triple-glazed windows provide insulation. Extra heating comes from the big grey air-handling units which also help circulate the air on hot days. Theyve planted around 1 million plants of just under 4,000 taxa (species and cultivars). Most are not rare, except for the few that tell stories of the need for conservation, neither were they taken from the wild. Many were grown from seed in their nursery, others came from botanic gardens, research stations and supporters, mostly in Europe and the UK. Once established, the big uns in the Rainforest Biome are pruned by abseilers or from a cherry picker. Some of the plats are insect-pollinated while others are wind-pollinated. Flowers are pollinated to produce seeds. The Projects rigorous healthcare programme, using isolation houses at Edens nursery, catches pest and disease problems before they reach the pit. In the pit, the integrated pest management system uses cultural methods (removal of infested plant parts), soft chemicals (soaps and oils) and 33 different types of biological control.The covered biomes are constructed from a tubular steel (hex-tri-hex) with mostly hexagonal external cladding panels made from the thermoplastic ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) - a fluorine based plastic, was designed to have high corrosion resistance and strength over a wide temperature range. The cladding panels themselves are created from several layers of thin UV-transparent ETFE film, which are sealed around their perimeter and inflated to create a large cushion. The resulting cushion acts as a thermal blanket to the structure. The ETFE material is resistant to most stains, which simply wash off in the rain. The structure is completely self-supporting, with no internal supports, and takes the form of a geodesic structure. The panels vary in size up to 9 meters across, with the largest at the top of the structure. The ETFE technology was supplied and installed by the firm Vector Foiltec, which is also responsible for ongoing maintenance of the cladding.The Eden Project includes environmental education focusing on the interdependence of plants and people; plants are labelled with their medicinal uses. The massive amounts of water required to create the humid conditions of the Tropical Biome, and to serve the toilet facilities, are all sanitized rain water that would otherwise collect at the bottom of the quarry. The only mains water used is for hand washing and for cooking. The complex also uses Green Tariff Electricity the energy comes from one of the many wind turbines in Cornwall, which were among the first in Europe. The Core is the latest addition to the site and opened in September 2005. Designed by Jolyon Brewis of Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, the Core is based on nature's architecture - what we call 'biomimicry'. It incorporates a central trunk and canopy roof that shades the ground and harvests the sun. The most striking feature - the roof created from an intricate web of curved timber beams - is based on Fibonacci spirals, a pattern found in many natural forms including the seeds of a sunflower head, pine cones and snail shells. Some features of the core include: super-insulated walls with Warmcel, made from recycled newspapers, reduction of heat loss by a lobby through the front door, underground tubes warm the air before it enters the building, photovoltaic panels on the roof provide electricity, the green tiles in the floor were originally Heineken bottles, the entrance mats are made from recycled truck tires, and the caf floor is made up of reclaimed wood. The core provides the Eden Project with an education facility, incorporating classrooms and exhibition spaces designed to help communicate Eden's central message about the relationship between people and plants. Accordingly, the building has taken its inspiration from plants, most noticeable in the form of the soaring timber roof, which gives the building its distinctive shape. Since 2002, the Project has hosted a series of musical performances, called the Eden Sessions, where many artists from around the world perform at the Project. This attracts more visitors to visit the Eden Project not just only to be educated about its environmental aspects but to have a recreational time as well. It also hosts a series of climate-related arts events.In conclusion, The Eden Project is both a major tourist attraction and striking learning environment that provides unforgettable learning experiences for students, promotes valuable research into plants and conservation and it possesses cutting-edge architectural designs and world-class sculptures and art.

References http://www.edenproject.com/whats-it-all-about/behind-the-scenes/about-us/our-story

https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/museumsociety/documents/volumes/blewitt.pdf