The aim of constructing these two distinct gathering places, Nature’s Collective and Urban Ensemble, is to reconnect people to their places within an atmosphere that is a study of the relationships between living organisms and their environment.
The Nature’s Collective is a pavilion which centres around the practice of citizen science. Catering to primary school children, the pavilion aims to provide a space to study and explore the ecology within the site. Run by the Midlothian ranger service, an existing biodiversity action plan service to raise awareness about ecology, this pavilion acts as an outreach ecological centre.
The Urban Ensemble is a gathering place that will offer visitors opportunities to engage in citizen science through exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and research. The scheme consists of four structures that create an ensemble of gathering places, aiming to bridge the townscape to the landscape. In an increasing disengagement between Dalkeith’s landscape and townscape, this scheme in response aims to bridge the disconnect within the community and between the people and their landscape. This, despite Dalkeith’s agricultural past, where the community once relied on their land, has now been forgotten. To further emphasise the growing divide, a bridge is constructed to connect the Nature’s Collective pavilion that caters mostly to children to the Urban Ensemble, an ecological centre in the townscape.
The atmosphere of the two gathering places were created to connect, within the structures and their surroundings. Taking into consideration that all living organisms that come within its range are linked, like an undefined thread looping through its constructs. Each action intertwines, across space, time and the environment. Nature’s Collective and Urban Ensemble are the conduits of the desired connection between people and places.