| Eden Project | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Interactive map of Eden Project | |
| General information | |
| Type | Multiple greenhouse complex |
| Architectural style | Inspired byJames T. Baldwin's Pillow Dome[1] |
| Location | Cornwall, England |
| Coordinates | 50°21′43″N4°44′41″W / 50.36194°N 4.74472°W /50.36194; -4.74472 |
| Completed | May 2000; 25 years ago (2000-05) |
| Opened | 17 March 2001; 24 years ago (2001-03-17) |
| Technical details | |
| Structural system | Steel frame and thermoplastic |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Grimshaw Architects |
| Structural engineer | Anthony Hunt and Associates |
| Services engineer | Arup |
TheEden Project (Cornish:Edenva) is a visitor attraction inCornwall, England. The project is located in a reclaimedchina claypit.[2][3]
The complex is dominated by two huge enclosures consisting of adjoining domes that house thousands of plantspecies,[4] and each enclosure emulates a naturalbiome. The biomes consist of hundreds ofhexagonal andpentagonal ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) inflated cells supported bygeodesic tubular steel domes. The larger of the two biomes simulates arainforest environment (and is one of the largest indoor rainforests in the world)[5] and the second, aMediterranean environment.
The attraction also has an outsidebotanical garden which is home to many plants and wildlife native to Cornwall and the UK in general; it also has many plants that provide an important and interesting backstory, for example, those with a prehistoric heritage.
There are plans to build an Eden Project in the seaside town ofMorecambe,Lancashire, with a focus on the marine environment.
The clay pit in which the project is sited was in use for over 160 years.[7] In 1981, the pit was used by theBBC as the planet surface of Magrathea in the TV seriesthe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[8] By the mid-1990s the pit was all but exhausted.[9]
The initial idea for the project dates back to 1996, with construction beginning in 1998. The work was hampered by torrential rain in the first few months of the project, and parts of the pit flooded as it sits 15 m (49 ft) below the water table.[9]
The first part of the Eden Project, the visitor centre, opened to the public in May 2000. The first plants began arriving in September of that year,[9] and the full site opened on 17 March 2001.
To counter criticism from environmental groups, the Eden Project committed to investigate a rail link to the site.[10] The rail link was never built, and car parking on the site is still funded from revenue generated from general admission ticket sales. A bus service links the site toSt Austell railway station, on theCornish Main Line.
The Eden Project was used as a filming location for the 2002James Bond filmDie Another Day. On 2 July 2005 The Eden Project hosted the"Africa Calling" concert of theLive 8 concert series. It has also provided some plants for theBritish Museum's Africa garden.
In 2005, the Project launched "A Time of Gifts" for the winter months, November to February. This features an ice rink covering the lake, with a small café-bar attached, as well as a Christmas market. Cornish choirs regularly perform in the biomes.
In 2007, the Eden Project campaigned unsuccessfully for £50 million inBig Lottery Fund money for a proposeddesert biome.[11][12] It received just 12.07% of the votes, the lowest for the four projects being considered.[13] As part of the campaign, the Eden Project invited people all over Cornwall to try to break theworld record for the biggest everpub quiz as part of its campaign to bring £50 million oflottery funds to Cornwall.[14]
In December 2009, much of the project, including both greenhouses, became available to navigate throughGoogle Street View.
The Eden Trust revealed a trading loss of £1.3 million for 2012–13, on a turnover of £25.4 million. The Eden Project had posted a surplus of £136,000 for the previous year. In 2014 Eden accounts showed a surplus of £2 million.[15]
TheWorld Pasty Championships, an international competition to find the bestCornish pasties and other pasty-type savoury snacks, have been held at the Eden Project since 2012.[16]
The Eden Project is said to have contributed over £1 billion to the Cornish economy.[17] In 2016, Eden became home to Europe's second-largestredwood forest (after the Giants Grove at Birr Castle,Birr Castle, Ireland) when forty saplings of coast redwoods,Sequoia sempervirens, which could live for 4,000 years and reach 115 metres in height, were planted there.[18]
The Eden Project received 1,010,095 visitors in 2019.[19]
In December 2020 the project was closed after heavy rain caused severallandslips at the site. Managers at the site are assessing the damage and will announce when the project will reopen on the company's website.[20] Reopening became irrelevant as Covid lockdown measures in the UK indefinitely closed the venue from early 2021, though it had reopened by May 2021 after remedial works had taken place. The site was used for an event during the2021 G7 Summit, hosted by the United Kingdom.[21]
The project was conceived byTim Smit andJonathan Ball, and designed byGrimshaw Architects and structural engineering firmAnthony Hunt Associates (now part ofSinclair Knight Merz).Davis Langdon carried out the project management,Sir Robert McAlpine andAlfred McAlpine[22] did the construction,MERO jointly designed and built the biome steel structures, theETFE pillows that build the façade were realized byVector Foiltec, andArup was the services engineer, economic consultant, environmental engineer and transportation engineer. Land Use Consultants led the masterplan and landscape design. The project took 2½ years to construct and opened to the public on 17 March 2001.
.JPG)
Once into the attraction, there is a meandering path with views of the two biomes, planted landscapes, including vegetable gardens, and sculptures that include a giantbee and previously TheWEEE Man (removed in 2016), a towering figure made from old electrical appliances and was meant to represent the average electrical waste used by one person in a lifetime.
At the bottom of the pit are two coveredbiomes:
The Rainforest Biome, covers 1.56 ha (3.9 acres) and measures 55 m (180 ft) high, 100 m (328 ft) wide, and 200 m (656 ft) long. It is used for tropical plants, such as fruitingbanana plants,coffee, rubber, and giantbamboo, and is kept at a tropical temperature and moisture level.
TheMediterranean Biome covers 0.654 ha (1.6 acres) and measures 35 m (115 ft) high, 65 m (213 ft) wide, and 135 m (443 ft) long. It houses familiar warmtemperate andarid plants such asolives and grapevines and various sculptures.
The Outdoor Gardens represent the temperate regions of the world with plants such astea,lavender,hops,hemp, andsunflowers, as well as local plant species.
The covered biomes are constructed from a tubular steel (hex-tri-hex) with mostly hexagonal external cladding panels made from the thermoplasticETFE. Glass was avoided due to its weight and potential dangers. The cladding panels themselves are created from several layers of thinUV-transparent ETFEfilm, which are sealed around theirperimeter 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. If required, cleaning can be performed byabseilers. Although the ETFE is susceptible to punctures, these can be easily fixed with ETFE tape. The structure is completely self-supporting, with no internal supports, and takes the form of ageodesic structure. The panels vary in size up to 9 m (29.5 ft) across, with the largest at the top of the structure.
The ETFE technology was supplied and installed by the firmVector Foiltec, which is also responsible for ongoing maintenance of the cladding. The steel spaceframe and cladding package (with Vector Foiltec as ETFE subcontractor) was designed, supplied and installed by MERO (UK) PLC, who also jointly developed the overall scheme geometry with the architect, Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners.
The entire build project was managed by McAlpine Joint Venture.
The Core is the latest addition to the site and opened in September 2005. It 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.
Grimshaw developed the geometry of the copper-clad roof in collaboration with a sculptor, Peter Randall-Page, and Mike Purvis of structural engineersSKM Anthony Hunts. It is derived fromphyllotaxis, which is the mathematical basis for nearly all plant growth; the "opposing spirals" found in many plants such as the seeds in a sunflower's head,pine cones, andpineapples. The copper was obtained from traceable sources, and the Eden Project is working withRio Tinto to explore the possibility of encouraging further traceable supply routes for metals, which would enable users to avoid metals mined unethically. The services andacoustic, mechanical, and electrical engineering design was carried out byBuro Happold.
The Core is also home to art exhibitions throughout the year. A permanent installation entitledSeed, byPeter Randall-Page, occupies the anteroom.Seed is a large, 70 tonne egg-shaped installation, carved from a single block ofgranite fromDe Lank Quarry onBodmin Moor, standing some 13 feet (4.0 m) tall and displaying a complex pattern of protrusions that are based upon thegeometric and mathematical principles that underlie plant growth.[23][24]
The biomes provide diverse growing conditions, and many plants are on display.
The Eden Project includesenvironmental 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 sanitised rain water that would otherwise collect at the bottom of the quarry. The onlymains water used is for hand washing and for cooking. The complex also uses Green Tariff Electricity – some of the energy comes from one of the manywind turbines in Cornwall, which were among the first in Europe.
In December 2010 the Eden Project received permission to build ageothermal electricity plant which will generate approx 4MWe, enough to supply Eden and about 5000 households.[25] The project will involvegeothermal heating as well as geothermal electricity.Cornwall Council and theEuropean Union came up with the greater part of £16.8m required to start the project. First a well will be sunk nearly 3 miles (4.5 km) into the granite crust underneath Eden.
Eden co-founder, SirTim Smit said, "Since we began, Eden has had a dream that the world should be powered by renewable energy. The sun can provide massive solar power and the wind has been harnessed by humankind for thousands of years, but because both are intermittent and battery technology cannot yet store all we need there is a gap. We believe the answer lies beneath our feet in the heat underground that can be accessed by drilling technology that pumps water towards the centre of the Earth and brings it back up superheated to provide us with heat and electricity".[26]
Drilling began in May 2021,[27] and heating of the biomes began in 2023, using 85°C.[28]
In 2018, the Eden Project revealed its design for a new version of the project, located on the seafront inMorecambe,Lancashire. There will be biomes shaped likemussels and a focus on the marine environment. There will also be reimaginedlidos, gardens, performance spaces, immersive experiences, and observatories.[29][30]
Grimshaw are the architects for the project, which is expected to cost £80 million.[31] The project is a partnership with the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership,Lancaster University,Lancashire County Council, andLancaster City Council.[29][30] In December 2018, the four local partners agreed to provide £1 million to develop the idea, which allowed the development of an outline planning application for the project.[32] It is expected that there will be 500 jobs created and 8,000 visitors a day to the site.[32]
Having been granted planning permission in January 2022 and with £50 million of levelling-up funding granted in January 2023, it is due to open in late 2028 and predicted to benefit the North West economy by £200 million per year.[33][34][35][36][37] In July 2024, Lancaster City Council received the first £2.5m of a promised £50m in UK government funding for the scheme. The grant would be used to appoint a main contractor to develop the designs for Eden Project Morecambe.[38]
In May 2020, the Eden Project revealed plans to establish their first attraction in Scotland, and namedDundee as the proposed site of the location.[39] The city'sCamperdown Park was widely touted to be the proposed location of the new attraction however in May 2021, it was announced that the Eden Project had chosen the site of the former gasworks inDundee as the location. It was planned that the new development would result in 200 new jobs and "contribute £27m a year to the regional economy".[40] The project is in partnership withDundee City Council, theUniversity of Dundee and the Northwood Charitable Trust.[41]
In 2021, Eden Project announced that they would establish fourteen hectares of new wildflower habitat in areas across Dundee, includingMorgan Academy and Caird Park.[42]
In July 2023, new images were released depicting what the Dundee attraction would look which accompanied the planning permission documents for the new attraction which would be submitted by autumn 2023.[43]
Planning permission for the project was approved byDundee City Council in June 2024.[44]
In 2020,Eastbourne Borough Council and the Eden Project announced a joint project to explore the viability of a new Eden site in theSouth Downs National Park.[45]
In 2015, the Eden Project announced that it had reached an agreement to construct an Eden site inQingdao, China.[46] While the site had originally been slated to open by 2020, construction fell behind schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the opening date was delayed to 2023. The new site is expected to focus on "water" and its central role in civilization and nature.[47]
A planned Eden Project for theNew Zealand city ofChristchurch, to be called Eden Project New Zealand/Eden Project Aotearoa, was expected to be inaugurated in 2025. It was to be centred close to theAvon River, on a site largely razed as a result of the2011 Christchurch Earthquake.[48] The project has since been cancelled.[49]
Since 2002, the Project has hosted a series of musical performances, called the Eden Sessions, usually held during the summer. The 2020 sessions were postponed due to theCOVID-19 pandemic and were rescheduled as the 2022 sessions lineup.
The currently announced acts for the 2026 sessions will be headlined byPixies,The Maccabees,Bowling for Soup andFrank Turner & The Sleeping Souls.
The Eden Project has appeared in various television shows and films such as theJames Bond filmDie Another Day,The Bad Education Movie, in theNetflix seriesThe Last Bus, in theCBeebies showAndy's Aquatic Adventure and inArmenia’s postcard in theEurovision Song Contest 2023.
A weekly radio show calledThe Eden Radio Project is held every Thursday afternoon on CHAOS Radio, formerly known asRadio St Austell Bay.
On 18 November 2019, on theTrees A Crowd podcast,David Oakes interviewed Eden Project's Head of Interpretation, Dr Jo Elworthy, about the site.
Made out of a single piece of granite, its surface has been carved with 1,800 nodes in the pattern of a Fibonacci spiral – the growth pattern found across the natural world in things like sunflowers, pine cones and ammonites
| International | |
|---|---|
| Geographic | |
| Other | |
