Information about Earth Centre

Earth Centre Attractions

Solar Point
Visitors begin and end their journey through Earth Centre in Solar Point. The plaza is named in celebration of the sun, the source of all energy for life on earth. The Solar Pod, designed by Solar Century, is a demonstration of solar power. The sides of the Pod are covered with a sturdy and colourful material made of recycled plastic bags. In Phase 2, due to open in April 2000, a six metre high canopy of solar photovoltaics will give cover to this area. The canopy will provide Earth Centre with a proportion of its electricity requirements.

From Solar Point the visitor can see, just beyond the gates, a double spiral of crushed local limestone and coal spoil. The limestone provides a link with twelfth century Conisbrough Castle, visible in the near distance, and other buildings in Earth Centre. The coal spoil is a reminder that the visitor is standing on the regenerated site of two coalmines, Denaby Main Colliery, which closed in 1968, and Cadeby Colliery which closed in 1986 after a bitter strike, and a memorial to the miners who worked here.

The material used underfoot on the plaza is local, hardwearing York stone. The wide paths leading away from the area are covered in Bredon gravel from Derbyshire. On either side of Solar Point are eat.organic@earthcentre and Planet Earth Galleries.


eat.organic@earthcentre
The restaurant serves food grown locally and organically as far as possible and fair-traded food. It's healthy food that sustains the customer and the planet without ill effect.

The restaurant building is light and airy in design. It has a natural form of "air conditioning" that does not depend on refrigerants, but uses the height of the building and the windows at roof level to keep the interior cool. A cladding of green oak shades the windows from direct sunlight. In winter an underground heating system keeps the building warm. The architects, Feilden Clegg, designed the restaurant as a contrast to Planet Earth Galleries across the plaza, another Feilden Clegg design.


Planet Earth Galleries
These immense galleries, a Feilden Clegg design, are built into the hillside at the foot of a limestone escarpment. The façade is local magnesian limestone, quarried at Cadeby, the same stone that was used to build Conisbrough Castle. The whole of the Earth Centre site and the surrounding area can be viewed from the roof of the Galleries.

The galleries are the largest underground (or cut-and-cover) building a visitor is likely to experience. An interesting feature, which the visitor does not see, is the labyrinth underneath the galleries. The labyrinth combines the idea of the Roman hypocaust with contemporary environmental modelling techniques. It acts as an effective temperature regulator, keeping temperatures comfortable in summer and winter. Two photographic representations of the labyrinth were made by Helen Sear for Photo 98 and hang in the Entrance Gallery to the building.

Planet Earth Galleries house two major exhibitions, Planet Earth Experience and Action for the Future.

Planet Earth Experience
The Planet Earth Experience takes place in an immense, dark gallery space. It conveys a simple message: the world is a wonderful place full of beauty and life, but something is wrong. The way we live on earth is rapidly destroying the natural systems upon which we depend. Through this Experience visitors can explore the ever-changing balance between people, nature and technology.

Planet Earth Experience is the world's first "cyberhenge". Henges of standing glass hold sculptures representing life on earth, figures that survive everything that happens in the room. Giant, cracked, glowing globes symbolise threats to the earth.

In this unsettling, unpredictable world, theatrical visions unfold with the use of lights, projections and prisms. Music and sound are part of the experience. An installation of Solar Spectrum Art bathes the visitor in intense rainbow colours. It is a powerful, optimistic experience to symbolise the possibility of a fantastic future - a sustainable future - in the new Millennium.

Designed by an inspiring team of international artists working under the name 30/70, Planet Earth offers a compelling theatrical experience in which the visitor becomes a player in the great global challenge of a sustainable future

Action for the Future
A dramatic contrast to the dark space of the Planet Earth Experience, Action for the Future is a light, bright, optimistic space. It completes the story within the Planet Earth Galleries with a multitude of ideas and visions for a sustainable future. In the centre of the room is a huge table model that tells the story of Earth Centre and the surrounding area.

There are many inspirational examples of sustainable practices that people are putting into action around the world, making sustainability a part of their lives. In this gallery sustainability is divided into sixteen categories, each with an animated installation or "icon" to represent it. When visitors explore the rest of the site they will encounter these sixteen themes in a variety of combinations in everything they see.

‘Magic’ windows invite the visitor to see a “fantastic future” at home, in a city, country and planet-wide as visions of regeneration and sustainable futures are revealed.

The exhibition, designed by OPERA, a company based in Amsterdam, is intended to prepare visitors for the remainder of the site and to prompt them to think about sustainable actions they could take at home.


Devil's Ings
Across the McColgan Bridge from Solar Point lie the Devil's Ings, the wetlands of the Earth Centre site, situated between the path and the River Don.

The lagoon catches the run-off water from the site and this is also where the cleaned water from the wastewater treatment system ends. From here water can be taken for storage on site and used to irrigate the gardens in dry conditions. Further along the riverbank are the biomass gardens, where fast growing trees like willow and red oak are planted. The wood from these may be gathered and chipped for use as fuel in the biomass burner in Planet Earth Galleries, possibly in Phase 2.


Nature Works
Nature Works explores the aquatic and other habitats of the Earth Centre site, encouraging hands-on and exploratory play and education. Specially constructed podiums exhibit the different habitats, children "pond-dip" from indoor tanks to collect algae, bugs and fish in jam jars, and visitors are able to view some of the mini beasts magnified through a microscope onto large overhead screens.

The building is a simple timber and glass structure, designed by Letts Wheeler, standing between the Cadeby stream and one of the wildlife ponds. It has a steel frame with a cladding of indigenous softwood, and the roof is made of slabs of reconstituted timber waste. Nature Works is a "coats-on" experience; there is no heating in the building.

Nature Works was conceived, and designed in part, by local children, naturalists and community groups. It serves as a focus for events, demonstrations and guided tours to show the freshwater and terrestrial habitats and the biological diversity in and around Earth Centre’s 400 acre Ecology Park.

Kaki Peace Tree
This special tree from Japan represents part of the Revive Time Kaki Tree Project lead by world-class artist Tatsuo Miyajima.

The tree carries enormous symbolic significance of regeneration, hope and peace. When the nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, five trees survived the devastation. In 1993, almost fifty years later, Dr. Ebinuma, a tree doctor living in Nagasaki, diagnosed and cured one of the burnt Kaki trees and succeeded in growing a sapling. He started to hand these saplings over to children for them to grow as symbols of regeneration. The Earth Centre tree is one of the saplings grown in this way, and was ceremonially planted on a snow covered site on March 6th 1999, in the presence of Dr. Ebinuma and Tatsuo Miyajima.

Although fifty-three and a half years had passed since the destruction of Nagasaki, the sapling's level of radiation had to be tested before it could be considered safe to be planted at Earth Centre.


Wilderness Adventure
From the top of the Play Mount children can align themselves with the ley line that runs under Earth Centre between Conisbrough Castle and the Volcano (not a real one!) before sliding down the tube to the bottom. The play equipment has been designed by Hags, a company well known for its safe and innovative designs. Toddlers have their own play area with safe equipment and soft white sand in which to play.

Part of Wilderness Adventure is the Wilderness Theatre, covered by a huge gridshell of green oak and fronted by an area of lush grass upon which the audience can sit - or stand, or turn cartwheels!

Running the length of Wilderness Adventure is the Rokkaku Trail.

Rokkaku Trail
This Japanese sensory trail was designed by Kijo Rokkaku, and is the only one outside Japan. It encourages visitors to use their senses of touch, smell and hearing. An underfoot path of different textures massages bare feet in the same way as a reflexologist might. Giant trumpets enhance sounds to allow visitors to hear the noises around them in a different way. Earth Centre's own special perfumes fill strange hooded shapes into which visitors can put their heads.

The heightened use of the senses can allow visitors to experience the world around them in whole new way.



Earth Arena
This is Earth Centre's theatre in the round; an open air circular space with a central area for events surrounded by two semi-circles of tiered wooden seats. The Arena was designed by Alsop and Stormer, the architects of the Water Works building. As a venue it lends itself to performances of all kinds from plays to musical events to quizzes.


Forest Gardens
Earth Centre landscape was designed by landscape architects Grant Associates. The company's objectives were to create a beautiful and inspiring landscape that is truly sustainable and educational.

Forest Gardens replicate forest conditions with plantings of native woodland species. A canopy of trees gives cover to shrubbery, which in turn gives cover to ground plants. Gridshells made of green oak covered with climbing plants take the place of the tree canopy until that has grown. The herbaceous plants are herbs for medicinal as well as culinary use and edible plants. Paths of crushed red brick twist and turn to lead the visitor through the gardens.


Bog Gardens
Several small bog gardens line the route from Water Works down to the River Don. Visitors can find ideas for planting their garden ponds or other wet areas in their gardens. Trees, shrubs and ground plants suitable for the conditions are used, from the Swamp Cypress to the Stinking Iris.

In between the bog gardens runs the Bio-Fence, a "bio-reactor" capable of producing algae in prolific quantities. It's bright, almost glowing, green colour comes from the pigment chlorophyll in the algae. The Fence is part of Earth Centre's waste water treatment. Partially cleaned water enters the Bio-Fence from the Living Machine in Waterworks, and the algae in the fence feed on the waste matter. The cleaned water ends in the lagoon from where it is pumped to the main holding tank on site and used to irrigate the gardens in dry weather conditions. The Bio-Fence also has an end product - the algae is drawn off for use as fertilizer on the gardens.



Water Works
The Water Works building, designed by architects Alsop and Stormer, is a simple, modern building, the design of which is dictated by its function.

The main area of the building houses the Living Machine, part of the waste-water treatment on site. The Living Machine is a combination of simple technology and the complex ecology of plants and micro-organisms. Bacteria on the roots of green-house plants growing in the large tanks of the Living Machine cleanse the waste water. The building has a triple skin of Osteflon, a material more environmentally friendly in its production than PVC, and lighter in weight than glass. The high level of transparency allows the plants to receive the UV radiation they require for healthy growth, and the triple layering provides insulation.

The entrance area to the Water Works building holds an exhibition on the issues of water and sustainable development and an illustration of the development of the combination of technology and ecology seen in the Living Machine. This part of the building has a cladding of indigenous Douglas Fir on a wooden framework.


21st Century Terraced Gardens
These gardens face south to make the most of the sun. The white of the limestone clad walls of the terraces reflects the warmth of the sun onto the soil.

The gardens are on three levels, showcasing local, national and global organic gardening techniques and produce. Each level has soils ranging from alkaline, which represents the limestone to the east of the gardens, to acid, which is the coal spoil to the west.

Grassed orchards top the terraces and it is hoped that the fruit and vegetables from the orchards and gardens will provision the restaurant, eat.organic@earthcentre.




Dry Gardens
Earth Centre is built on the site of two former collieries and their hills of coal spoil. Very little will grow on acid coal spoil so soil had to be created for all our gardens. Soil was built up using various combinations of sewage sludge, green waste, farm manure, waste from mushroom farming and topsoil brought from local land that was being developed for building.

The south facing Dry Gardens are planted with drought tolerant species of trees, shrubs and plants from all over the world. Rainfall is captured in the soil but the gardens are not artificially irrigated. Stones cover the soil acting as a mulch, keeping the moisture in the soil and preventing weeds from growing. The trees in the grove at the foot of the garden are Eucalyptus trees.

A Hornbeam is planted at the heart of Earth Centre at the top of the Dry Gardens. Both the landscape architect and a ley-line expert separately selected this place as the heart of the site.



The Willow Story
The willow is the most versatile of trees.

At Earth Centre we have taken advantage of the willow's ability to grow from cut branches put into the ground and its flexibility to make fences, tunnels and archways. These create beautiful sculptured forms that just a few weeks after their construction in April 1999 were bursting into leaf. Willow has also been used to make the "baskets" that form the peepholes in the living willow.

Willows particularly like to grow near water and the Cadeby Stream, which runs under the McColgan Bridge, is overhung with them. They make excellent biomass in Devil's Ings, the Wetlands, because they grow so quickly and produce wood that can be cut every three years without doing any damage to the plant. They provide a wonderful habitat for insects, particularly butterflies.

In our Ecology Park willow is used to help decontaminate the soil; it is excellent at absorbing heavy metals.


Earth Shop
On Solar Point, inside the Planet Earth building, is a shop with a difference. The products for sale are locally produced, organically produced and fair-traded as far as possible. The shop is also an outlet for goods from Oxfam, The Body Shop, Neal's Yard and Dorling Kindersley.

Inside the shop are Action Stations. Here you can find out about how to become an Earth Companion or an Earth Family, find out more about Earth Centre, find out which organisations are the best ones to contact about a variety of subjects and tell our staff about your own ideas for taking action for the future.

We used it when we took our classes around the Earth Centre.