Climate Culture Pavilion
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
Climate change calls for new ways of life and everyday structures, as well as new strategies for dealing with our environment and its resources. Climate culture means a change towards a climate-positive society. There is no way back, only a common future. The Climate Culture Pavilion gives stage to this common change.
During the summer of 2021, a 100m2 forest oasis in the middle of Graz invites to relaxation, lectures, concerts, theater and discourse. ogether we want to shape climate culture.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
The Climate Culture Pavilion is a temporarily constructed piece of forest, a stage and meeting place in the city centre of Graz – further cities will follow in 2022. During the summer of 2021, the forest oasis invites to relaxation, culture and discourse. Together we want to shape Climate Culture, the transformation towards a climate-positive society.
Background
Climate change calls for new ways of living and everyday structures, as well as new strategies for dealing with our environment and its resources. The way we live, work and organise our daily lives, the clothes we wear and the food we eat will have to change fundamentally. We are facing a major societal cultural shift. There is no way back, only a common future. The pavilion is a platform, stage and backdrop for the political and cultural debate on this cultural change.
Forest
In the centre of the pavilion is a dense 100 m2 piece of forest. Supported by controlled air circulation and spray mist it can reduce the perceived temperature by up to 6°C. The vegetation has been designed together with the pavilion. The vegetation was developed as showcase for a sustainable, resilient forest that also smells pleasant. The effect of a dense green space in the city can be felt and experienced here.
Programme
The Climate Culture Pavilion aims to link political, economic, scientific and cultural debates and make them freely accessible to the public. We, the Breathe Earth Collective, curate the programme and deliberately try to link different interests and focuses: theater plays are accompanied by scientific analyses, films are discussed politically and business representatives meet Fridays for Future. Sustainable initiatives and companies offer experimental menus, while designers present emission-free multifunctional clothing.
Partners
In addition to more than thirty partners from culture, science, politics and business, there is an open call, through which more than 40 initiatives have been found
Key objectives for sustainability
Construction
The Climate Culture Pavilion is constructed from three standard profiled timbers (larch and spruce) and fixed with screw or plug-in connections. The wooden structure can be easily dismantled and transported on a lorry or used as building material afterwards. – We are currently working on the conversion to an office building, as which the pavilion will hopefully be used from winter 2023.
Technical installations
All technical installations, electrical cables and water pipes up to the installed equipment, are borrowed or rented. They will be put to an equivalent use in the future.
Landscape
The landscaping elements and substrates are also borrowed and will be taken back by the owners after use. The plants, on the other hand, have sponsorships. The individual trees will find new locations afterwards - as street trees for the city administration, for green roofs or in private gardens.
Climatic and ecological performance
The Climate Culture Pavilion prototypically demonstrates the cooling of an urban space through dense planting and its evapotranspiration in combination with the use of spray mist. The plants lead to a natural climate moderation. At the same time, the woodland becomes an important part of the local ecosystem after only a few weeks. Birds nest and insects settle.
Events
No printed material is produced for the pavilion. All information and invitations are made on the internet. Due to COVID19 regulations, events are also streamed live. The complete server infrastructure therefore is located on site in Graz in order to avoid unnecessary data traffic as possible.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
At the heart of the Climate Culture Pavilion is an intense sensorial forest experience. Visitors see lush vegetation, smell the damp forest floor and feel the freshness on their faces.
Today's society spends more than 90 percent of its time indoors with artificial climate, artificial light and fully controlled. Natural environments, however, provide a much more efficiently conditioned living environment for us humans. The forest experience in the Climate Culture Pavilion reduces personal stress levels and, in combination with the natural, robust and soft materials and surfaces, contributes to a relaxed atmosphere and familiar feel.
Key objectives for inclusion
The Climate Culture Pavilion is freely accessible at all times. There are no closed events. Furthermore, access is barrier-free and communication is primarily through the sensory experience of the forest environment on site. The emotional communication about the tangible experience of nature appeals to all people.
Financially, the project is based on solidarity: Large and financially strong partners pay contributions for the pavilion. Small and young initiatives pay nothing or are supported by us in financing their own costs.
Results in relation to category
The Climate-Culture Pavilion cooperates with about 30 institutions from culture, science and business. Among others, the Schauspielhaus Graz (Theater) and the Graz Opera are involved, as well as the Austrian Federal Forest Research Centre or the Wegener Center for Global Change and Networks of Sustainable Enterprises.
In addition to these institutional partners, more than 40 initiatives have registered via an open call to contribute to the climate discourse with small events. These include political debates by the Students for Future as well as readings or a poetry slam to street theatre, cooking, sports and dance events.
The programme is based on a broad network and offers a non-partisan discourse in the forest. The forest itself has long since become the backdrop, the media background, of the sustainability discourse. It is omnipresent in press images and films. The press reports from the pavilion several times a week. There are several online channels with discussions on climate culture from the Climate Culture Forest.
The long-term consequences the pavilion will have for local society remains to be seen.
How Citizens benefit
The pavilion combines a dense outdoor cultural programme - which has contributed significantly to its attractiveness, especially since the COVID19 pandemic - with the possibility of an open stage for social and political discourse. It is meant to be an attractive, socially low-threshold and neutral place to give space to discussions and speculations for a future society.
Climate change and cultural change are given the stage, regardless of the social ideals and economic expectations of the participants. Much more than expected, the pavilion is a projection surface for the individual wishes and ideas of visitors and actors. The pavilion with the forest in the middle of the city shows simple and efficient possibilities for a new living environment. Discussions in this context, in the forest clearing under trees in the middle of the city, are surprisingly consensual and solution-oriented.
The media attention of the pavilion has initiated a variety of discourses and redesign processes in the city of Graz. The newly founded Climate Advisory Board of the City of Graz, which is to orient all projects of the city towards ecological sustainability from project idea to implementation, presents projects in the Climate Culture Pavilion on a weekly basis and discusses them publicly.
Many users spend their lunch break or evening stroll in the Climate-Culture Pavilion and in this way enter into the substantive discussion of cultural change quite incidentally. In this way, many people can be reached and addressed. The Climate-Culture Pavilion and the associated forest backdrop have become a common identifying feature of the discourse.
Innovative character
The Climate Culture Pavilion uses strong sensory experiences and images to address climate change and cultural change. It communicates through physical experiences that can also be perceived incidentally in this everyday urban space.
The pavilion comprehensively involves the local population with open calls and the search for parenthood and sponsorships. It shows how (seemingly effortlessly and silently) a sustainable building and a naturally fresh forest environment can be built in the city centre. Change is possible.
The pavilion's climate performance works exclusively through shading, targeted ventilation and the evapotranspiration effect of the vegetation in combination with spray mist. This alone can reduce the temperature by up to 6°C.
