We are very pleased to report on an exciting and busy week on site at Cove Park for the Scottish Future By Design team!

A team of young professionals based in Scotland have been working all week on site with architect Tom Morton on the installation on site of a new Outdoor Classroom for Cove Park. Cove Park’s Director of Facilities, Sarah Frood, is working closely with the team and describes below the progress being made:

‘Future By Design has created a hub of innovation, expertise and action on site at Cove Park. From the lead up with the young professional cohort developing a complex Scottish Larch Gridshell structure with Tom Morton of Arc Architects, Planting Plan using local flora and furthermore the development of bespoke Mycelium pieces with Mae-Ling Lokko. 
The group have carefully considered how we can use this experience as a way to explore the use of land, biodiversity and considerations for the future of architecture on site at Cove Park, but also looking internationally as we collaborate with our Ghanian counterparts who face both similar and very different considerations at the same time.  
Over the course of the past two weeks the cohort have collaborated with local Paterson family farmers, based here on the Rosneath peninsula, to undertake ground works, and worked with a joiner on site to create 15m-long Scottish Larch beams that will then be carefully manoeuvred to take on the curvature of the structure. As the outdoor classroom emerges, it signifies part of our journey at Cove Park to explore conversations about sustainable architecture and land management, both locally and internationally.’

Cove Park was announced as the winner of British Council’s Architecture, Design, Fashion’s Future By Design open call on 25 March 2021. This initiative is designed to inspire and promote a global dialogue around climate change, with a specific focus on engaging young people.

We are delighted to have this exciting opportunity to develop an ambitious new project, and to work with Ghanaian-Filipino architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko and Scottish architect Tom Morton, of Arc Architects, on the design of a hybrid, eco-sustainable ‘open classroom’ for Cove Park, developed collaboratively with a multi-disciplinary cohort of young professionals from across Scotland, and those in Ghana connected to the interdisciplinary Ashesi Entrepreneurship Centre in Ghana. 

A series of 6 workshop at Cove Park, aimed at children in primary and secondary school also took place this summer. Co-created and led by the students and young professionals who form the Scottish cohort these workshops include model making, stop motion animation, natural dying and mapping. Funded by The Maple Trust, these free workshop will engage individuals and groups directly with the development of the project. In addition we have secured further funding from YouthLink Scotland’s Summer of Play fund to host supplementary workshops for teenagers and young people focusing in greater detail on the build including mycelium growing with Mae-ling and terraforming of the site.

Future By Design is funded by and developed in collaboration with British Council Architecture Design Fashion.

Arts & Business Scotland, through The Culture & Business Fund Scotland COVID-19 Recovery & Renewal Strand, are also match-funding generous in-kind sponsorship from Mae-ling and Tom. 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 Mae-ling and Tom and delivered by Cove Park. The focus of many of the events and conversations will be the intersectionality of environmental, racial and social justice. Further information on this award is available here.

The Classroom will launch in mid September 2021. Regular Future By Design posts will appear on these pages and via Cove Park’s social media and we look forward to sharing more news very soon.

Image: Work on site at Cove Park (photography, Sarah Frood)