Using science, art, play, storytelling, language, philosophy and collaboration, we gathered the garden’s contents. All specimens discovered and made in the workshops form the interactive archive for participants, or those that missed out on experiencing the garden first hand. Beyond the website, Garden_lab lived in the OTWG cabin where the physical specimen archive grew, and where visitors could engage in the archive, texts, recordings and artworks, around the project and the garden.

Over the course of six months we delivered and invited garden users, regular or new, to investigate with us and form a Herbarium (our garden archive), to capture the essence and value we collectively deemed appropriate.

The workshops varied from; making pigments out of the plants, mono printing with nature, linking up real life networks like roots do, mimicking the wildlife's use of the space through head cam's, and much more.

We designed the project and gave it a look, feel, and illustration style to stand alongside some of the beauty that the history of gardening once held, and to capture the playful and interactive work that go on amongst our cities’ museums and galleries.

Garden_lab is in part a reaction to our daily disconnect with the beauty of the natural environment, and a need to re-discover its wonders.

The project was a chance to investigate and record the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden’s biological environment, alongside its social and spatial uses. The aim of this process was to try and express the value of this space, beyond that which is decided by any private, professional, or governmental organisation.

We did this by designing a series of creative investigations that could allow visitors to become scientists, help document and discuss the various positive aspects of the greenspace in question, and think about value on a more personal level.

Using science, art, play, storytelling, language, philosophy and collaboration, we gathered the garden’s contents. All specimens discovered and made in the workshops form the interactive archive for participants, or those that missed out on experiencing the garden first hand. Beyond the website, Garden_lab lived in the OTWG cabin where the physical specimen archive grew, and where visitors could engage in the archive, texts, recordings and artworks, around the project and the garden.

Over the course of six months we delivered and invited garden users, regular or new, to investigate with us and form a Herbarium (our garden archive), to capture the essence and value we collectively deemed appropriate.

We designed the project and gave it a look, feel, and illustration style to stand alongside some of the beauty that the history of gardening once held, and to capture the playful and interactive work that go on amongst our cities’ museums and galleries.