araug01eden
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Honeycomb, fl ies eyes, fr ogspawn, cuckoo-
spit choose your organic simile. Built to
contain biological specimens, the biomes of
the Eden Project look like giant biological
specimens themselves, some kind of fungusfromouter space, perhaps, fruitingweirdly
in this worked out Cornish china clay-pit.
The design seems to have been inspired by
natural and/or science fiction images but,
though some Grimshaw buildings are indeed
image-inspired, in this case the impression is
misleading. The inspiration was not what
nature looks like but how it works, its
processes and structures. The fact that the
Eden Project is a ready-made set for
Quatermass and the Pithas been useful in the
marketingof the whole enterprise, but it
was a by-product rather than the starting
point of the design.
The greenhouses had to be sit
unshaded strip at the foot of t
north side of the pit. The first
linear, lean-to structure rathe
Grimshaws International TermWaterloo station (AR Septem
formposed a number of proble
For one thingthe three-dime
of the site, far more complicat
level curve of W aterloo, mea
difficult to use cheap, standard
components. To make matter
ground profile was constantly
duringthe development of the
because the site had not yet be
by the client and was still bein
long-span, arched structure wo
heavy, bulky and difficult to ca
the pit. It would also have cast
EDENPROJECT, CORNWALL, ENGLAND
A RCHITECT
NICHOLASGRIMSHAW & PARTNERS
1The bug-eyed geodesic domesof the HumidTropics Biome appear to engulf the grass
roof of the caf housed in the link building.2Like huge soap bubblesin the C ornishlandscape, the interlinked domeshave abeguiling(but deceptive) fragility.
EDEN REGAINEDSpectacularly colonizing a Cornish china clay-pit, the Eden Project is a monumental palm house for the
twenty-first century, its ingeniously engineered biomes inspired by natural processes and structures. comparative drawingshowingsection through the Humid T ropicsBiome and Kew Palm House
1
2
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shadows on the plants inside. A more
promising alternative was a much lighter and
more economical geodesic dome, but it had
the wrongplan-formand would have been
impossible to divide up into different zones.
The idea of a line of smaller, intersecting
geodesic domes was arrived at late in the
day, but it solved all the problems at once
and made the project possible.
It works like this: take a row of spheres of
different sizes, made like footballs out of
two-dimensional hexagons and pentagons,
and squash theminto one another, forming
perfect circles where they intersect. Then
squash the whole row into the site, in the
angle between the cliff and the quarry
bottom. Circles become arches, and the
hexagons and pentagons are removed as
necessary around the perimeter toaccommodate the irregular ground profile.
Structural components, mainly of tubular
steel joined by spherical nodes, are identical
in each dome and small enough to be easily
handled. These are not conventional domes
in that they exhibit tensile as well as
compressive structural behaviour. The
outer compressive grid is linked by
tetrahedrons to an inner tensile grid. The
double grid is necessary because the lattice
steel arches break the continuity of the
structure. For the same reason, the domes
were not self-supportingduringerection but
had to be assembled froma temporary
scaffold so bigthat it has enteredThe
Guinness Book of Records. This is a slight
disappointment for techno-organicists
raised on Buckminster Fuller (nature does
not use scaffolding), but there is nothing
heavy or awkward about the finished
structure. The geodesic grid i s scaled
accordingto the size of each dome and
except in the smallest dome, where it
becomes rather dense, the effect is
amazingly light for such enormous spans. At
the junctions with the arches, the grid is
adapted ad hoc, creatingirr egular
geometrical shapes. Architecturally, this
may seema worryinginconsistency, but it isexactly what happens in nature when, for
example, the hexagonal grid of veins in a
dragonflys wingmeets a leadingedge or a
structural spar.
The largest hexagons are 11macross and
therefore impossible to span with a single
sheet of glass, especially since it would have
to be double glazed and toughened. The
lightness of the structural grid is made
possible by a new high tech material
ethyltetrafluorethylene foil (E
light, transparent, flexible film
membrane cushions which are
by a constant low pressure air
Because they were formed an
the ETFE cushions could adapt
geometrical variations without
complicated schedulingor pro
planning. The biomes are beau
structures because they are e
structures a kind of beauty c
nature but rare in architecture
Like their humbler horticult
however, they also have a rug
practicality. The branchingne
flexible air-supply pipes, for ex
clipped to the structural stee
no attempt at concealment. T
ventilatingsystemsimply consstandingair handlers in ordina
boxes placed at intervals arou
perimeter, pokingtheir twin c
straight through the walls of th
Such artless functionalismis e
though the heavy duty adjusta
louvres associated with the du
perhaps a litt le too clumsy, th
linearity stubbornly at odds w
of the geodesic grid.
3Open ventilation panelsform a jaggedline alongthe biomes curved profile.4Caf terrace and link building, withWarm T emperate Biome beyond.5Detail of biome roof structure, withquarry cliffsbehind. The buildingoccupiesa worked-out china clay-pit.6, 7The smaller Warm Temperate Biome.
EDEN PROJECT, CORNWALL, ENGLAND
A R CHITECT
NICHOLASGRIMSHAW & PARTNERS
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site plan
EDEN PROJECT, CORNWALL, ENGLAND
A RCHITECT
NICHOLASGRIMSHAW & PARTNERS
8Hexagonal roof structure underconstruct ion, givingsome sense of theenormity of the scale.
longitudinal section
roof plan (scale approx 1:1500)
A siteaccessroa
B park ing
C coachparking
D disabledparkin
E HumidTropicF link building/c
G Warm Tempe
H visitors centre
1 HumidTropicsBiome
2 air handlingunits
3 link building/caf
4 rooflightsaboveplant
holdingarea
5 Warm TemperateBiome
typical roof node detail 8
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