The exterior space surrounding the pavilion is an area dedicated to showing how urban environments can be improved with the generation of urban green space.
Think Scotland and people think rain, bad health, poor diet, but they also think of our festivals, sporting heritage and our community spirit.
The pavilion’s green space includes areas for sport, entertainment, performances, practice, picnics…but without the threat of rain. Instead the design takes the idea of a green roof and turns it into an urban farm, which covers the restaurants, areas that could be used for an outdoor gym or sports area, meeting places, etc, with planted, sheltering canopies that collect the rainwater and recycle it to water the plants and for use by the community.
If the canopies provide the space to live a more outdoor, healthier lifestyle, they also have the added bene fit of educating the community in healthy eating and in sustainable local production of food and gets everyone in touch with the seasons.
On hand to demonstrate this to the people of Shanghai is Tom Kitchin, the Scottish Michelin starred chef whose philosophy is ’FROM NATURE TO PLATE’. All the ingredients sourced for his Edinburgh restaurant,The Kitchin, are pristine, seasonal, locally sourced ingredients. This ethos fosters close working relationships with carefully selected suppliers and could be used to create small holdings/urban farms to ease unemployment and continue farming traditions, providing the best ingredients available from Scotland’s outstanding natural larder.
The area also includes bee hives to encourage urban beekeeping in these times of worldwide bee population decline and will emphasise the idea of community working together.
An example of an urban community garden already in Scotland is North Kelvin Meadow in Glasgow, which is being threatened by the local council, who want to turn it into 115 flats. The campaigners from this densely populated area have held many peaceful protests on the site, such as picnics, all of which show that the garden has brought a community together, provided them with much needed greenspace and the opportunity to grow plants and fruit and given them the sense of place and belonging. The site was a previously disused playing field that fell into disrepair and was vacant for 25 years.
The following video shows what the campaigners have achieved so far.
The following links are to community gardens that I feature on the video, such as a favourite of mine, the Liberty Lands garden in Philadelphia.
Liberty Lands (Philadelphia), Birdtown (Detroit), Middlesborough Meal, Aplharetta (Adelaide)
The video below explains more about why I designed the elements of this area of the pavilion….
The Wave Pavilion 