Cove Park is delighted to announce a new collaboration with award-winning design studio Ab Rogers Design and success across three applications for match-funding from The Culture & Business Fund Scotland COVID-19 Recovery & Renewal Strand, through Arts & Business Scotland.

Ab Rogers and his team will work closely with Cove Park to redesign and fit out the interiors of the largest huts at Cove Park, whose curved roofs and wraparound balconies have been part of the landscape for over 20 years. Oak and Taransay Pods have both recently undergone substantial improvements, supported through the Scottish Government’s Community Climate Asset Fund, and will now benefit from nurturing interventions for sitting, eating, working and sleeping, inspired by the spectacular surrounding environment.

Arts & Business Scotland have match-funded Ab Rogers Design’s sponsorship and the funding will go towards a symposium taking place at Cove Park in concomitance with COP26. This 3-day event will bring academics, artists, researchers, makers and writers together to discuss transhistorical and transdisciplinary climate histories and narratives. More will be announced soon.

From 2022, the Pods will be able to house families and become home to residents staying at Cove Park for longer periods of time, in line with our commitment to reducing carbon emissions by reducing travel. The Pods will be unveiled in September.

Arts & Business Scotland, through The Culture & Business Fund Scotland COVID-19 Recovery & Renewal Strand, are also match-funding in-kind sponsorship from Ghanaian-Filipino agrowaste designer Mae-ling Lokko and Scottish architect Tom Morton of Arc Architects. The funding will bolster the Future By Design programme of activity to support four live events around the future of water, co-curated by both Ghanaian and Scottish cohorts of young people, with the guidance and support of Morton & Lokko, and delivered by Cove Park. The focus of many of the events and conversations will be the intersectionality of environmental, racial and social justice.

The culmination of Future By Design, a project funded by and in collaboration with British Council Architecture Design Fashion, will be the opening, also in September, of a hybrid and eco-sustainable ‘open landscape classroom’ on site at Cove Park, which will house public programmes about the impact of climate change on water for the foreseeable future.

David Watt, Chief Executive at Arts & Business Scotland, said“We are delighted that, through The Culture & Business Fund Scotland COVID-19 Recovery & Renewal Strand, not one, but three commercial partners – Ab Rogers Design, designer Mae-ling Lokko and architect Tom Morton of Arc Architects – have been able to come together to support the fantastic work carried out by Cove Park.

Not only will these three individual projects overlap to help future proof Cove Park for generations to come, they will also facilitate a whole host of exciting events and residencies aimed at supporting the centre in tackling important issues around climate change and social and racial equality. After the past year and a bit these conversations have never been more important, or timely, and I have no doubt the benefits will ripple out to the wider west coast community.  

We would encourage anyone inspired by Cove Park and its partners to get in touch for more information on how their local area, arts & culture organisations and businesses, could benefit through The Culture & Business Fund Scotland COVID-19 Recovery & Renewal Strand.”

Cove Park is deeply grateful to Arts & Business Scotland for their generous match-funding across these two programmes. We are also very grateful to Bute Fabrics, HAY and Muji for their generous support to the refurbishment of the Pods.