KinShip Project launches EcoLab at Tramore Valley Park

The KinShip Project is a long term public artwork which commenced in 2021, led by artists LennonTaylor developing a variety of socially engaged cultural initiatives at Tramore Valley Park, in Cork. KinShip is one of 15 initiatives nationally supported by the Creative Climate Action Award. The Clean Technology Centre has sat on the Working Group of the KinShip project since its formation.

Now open in Tramore Valley Park, the EcoLab will provide a meeting point and a shelter for future activities that promote kinship with the natural world. In March 2022, an international Design and Build Competition open call was launched for the design and build of an experimental and innovative temporary structure of architectural importance in Cork’s Tramore Valley Park. Award-winning Fuinneamh Workshop Architects and Civil and Structural Engineering Advisors Ltd were announced as the winners with their “den talamh” design concept.

Since, the walls of the EcoLab have been constructed using hand building techniques making it Ireland’s first and only rammed earth public building. According to Seán Ó’ Múiri at Fuinneamh Workshop Architects, “the process of “compacting earth” albeit above ground, resonates with the recent history of site use as a landfill, in creating a compacted landscape.” The hipped roof was thatched in reed by Master Thatcher John Barron, complementing the bogland environment by which it stands. 

Tramore Valley Park has been the site of great environmental change. From 1964 to 2009, this site was used as a landfill for Cork city. The area first opened up as a park in 2015 before fully opening to the public in 2019. KinShip offers artists and interested communities an opportunity to gather together, and to respond creatively and critically to the ecological and climate action challenges we face today.

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