Last week I assisted in running Planted, which was London’s first zero-waste event. The event exhibited a multitude of ways to connect people to nature, from everything surrounding natural living in sustainable textiles, furniture and even office working pods to panel discussions giving knowledge around biophilia and sustainability; and how to implement them in your lives. The event also showcased a ‘sleeping with nature installation’ which demonstrated sustainable cabins with natural mattresses to demonstrate the benefits of sleeping among biophilic design.
The event was a huge success having over 6000 visitors across the 4 days (Thursday 23rd – Sunday 26th September). Subsequently, showcasing a huge market and commercial case for connecting people with nature and the need for sustainability in design. The growing trend and rise in consumer appetite for this movements fit seamlessly in the efforts of my project trying to connect people to nature through hospitality settings.
Personally, helping at this event offered a unique opportunity to meet some of the key experts in my stakeholder groups and even some experts I didn’t know existed prior to the event. For instance, I met people from Strobilo which is a company that measures brainwave patterns resultant from interacting with natural designs and environments. This is a company I am now looking to involve in my immerisve event at Chelsea College of Arts to measure brain wave patterns resultant form interacting with my natural event. The brain waves could demonstrate the quantifiable case for including nature in spaces. This is a big company who have ran events with the likes of Heston Blumenthal to test the impacts of the food experiences on brian waves. Due to the scope of the company I am in discussions as to whether they are able to get involved in my event as it is a lot smaller scale than their normal standard.
Other key companies I met during this event include Plant Designs which design, supply and maintain plants in work places but also in events. Plants Designs are a very exciting company and I am getting in contact regarding possible ways to work with them in the future.
There were many other exciting exhibitors at the event such as smile plastics creating furniture from recycled goods or the Yarn Collective showcasing sustainable and recycled textiles. All of the contacts I made here with the exhibitors will prove invaluable moving forward with my work and even past the scope of my masters.
The team at Planted behind the event are also very interesting and have many future plans for expansion and growth over the next year, as this was their first full-scale event due to covid restorations. I am also in talks with the Planted team on how to progress our working relationship.
Reflection
Being a part of such a large and influential event was truly an amazing experience. I was able to meet so many experts in my field that I have only been able to converse with online via places such as LinkedIn and many I had never spoken with before. It was particularly nice to meet Vanessa Champion in person, who is the editor of the Journal of Biophilic Design, which I recently wrote my article for. Vanessa was an invited panelists speaking on ‘what is biophilic deign?’.
The event was also an amazing experience in reflecting on how far I have come through the progress of my masters journey. Being at the start of my masters I was simply someone who was interested in the subjects of sustainability and biophilia, but being invited to assist in this event signified a change and growth in my position within the field. I felt that now I was an accepted part of the community with everyone striving towards the same goal, as a collective unit – to connect people to nature. It was amazing to be among so many likeminded people and for my work to be robust enough to stand up against the experts in the field to be discussed and respected. This solidified status among biophilic designers and the sustainability movement has allowed me to consider how I can continue to push my ideas further and that my work is something that is both academically significant but also desired by customers and the wider world to provide the benefits of nature through hospitality settings.
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