EDEN

Designed by HagenHinderdael in partnership with Grosvenor Britain & Ireland and Artistic Statements, Eden celebrates the importance of natural urban green spaces through an interactive experience. Tucked away off of Motcomb Street in Halkin Arcade, we invite visitors into a secret garden providing a connection to nature as a healing force within our industrialised urban context. With an emphasis on wellbeing, community, and sustainability Eden brings awareness to the fact that we need to restore our relationship with nature as our support system. Understanding the importance of a healthy ecosystem on our society will consequently help us to deal with the increasing environmental damage we are currently experiencing. EDEN affirms this with a fully sustainable design, completing its lifecycle through all parts of the installation being distributed and re-purposed ensuring an eco-friendly afterlife. Constructed of upcycled timber planters and resting atop a circular patch of grass, visitors will enter a 3-dimensional spiral housing an eco-system of greenery that immerses them into an urban oasis. Transforming from grasses into shrubbery, the culmination of the user journey is a central planter where visitors can plant their own seeds and take some away to create a wildflower meadow at home. With integrated solar lighting and bench seating, we invite you to rest in the proximity of nature – celebrating the importance of London’s green spaces as the Lungs of the City. Healthy natural environments are our support system, reducing the rates of physical and emotional illnesses and strengthening our body’s defence. Human preferences toward things in nature, while refined through experience and culture, are largely the product of biological evolution. A vigorous and diverse natural environment has a direct impact on our very own health, but in order to be regenerated by nature we need to reconnect and make an effort to nourish it in return. By creating a natural micro-ecosystem, EDEN emphasises the most low-tech, sustainable and possibly the most effective thing we can do to contribute to a healthy environment and life: Plant Seeds.