A trip to the Eden Project

I took a trip to the Eden Project over the Easter hols with friends and family as a self-funded addition to my research phase. I’ve wanted to go for such a long time, and it felt like the perfect moment to visit right at the start of this process.

We were lucky with the weather, such a lush sunny spring day. Exploring the biomes and surrounding landscape, I was super impressed by the sheer scale of what’s been created there. Not just physically, but in terms of ideas. It’s not just about displaying nature, it’s about how people connect to it, and what’s possible when you think big about ecology.

As I’m starting to explore the overlap between kinetic sculpture, ecology and public spaces, it was genuinely inspiring. I found myself noticing the details, how movement, structure and planting sit together, how people naturally move through the space, and how materials are allowed to age and settle into the landscape rather than feeling imposed on it.

The Tropical Biome was particularly spectacular and completely transports you somewhere else. It’s properly immersive, the shift in temperature, humidity and scale hits you as soon as you walk in, and suddenly you’re in a completely different environment.

I was also really struck by how the overall design both contrasts with and works alongside the organic elements. There’s something quite bold about the structures, but they don’t fight the landscape. They sit within it in a way that feels considered and intentional. You can tell a lot of very clever people have been involved in shaping it, and the level of collaboration behind it really shows. It’s pretty epic.

It made me think, this is the kind of context I would love my future work to sit in.

There’s something about the Eden Project, and other organisations working in a similar way, that feels like a natural fit for the kind of eco-kinetic sculptures I want to develop. Work that doesn’t just exist in a space, but interacts with it. Pieces that move with the wind, support planting, create habitats, and invite people to stop and look a bit closer.

It’s still early days, and there’s a lot of research and testing ahead. But being there made it feel more real somehow, less like an idea, more like a direction I can actually move towards.