Landscape Designer Created A Secret Forest In The Very Heart Of London

This installation was one of the highlight and core London Festival of Architecture events, responding to the subject of ‘Identity’

According to a landscape designer Sigita Simona Paplauskaite: “A highlight installation of the London Festival of Architecture 2018 ‘Identity’, The Building Site brings a section of secluded Lithuanian forest in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. I’m a landscape architect and an artist, Sigita Simona Paplauskaite, and I’ve designed an immersive environment that seeks to question the rapid urban development and its impact on the human relationship with nature.

Open during London Festival of Architecture, The Building Site addressed the growing concern around the changing ownership of public space in London and invited its visitors to reflect on the consequences of urbanization on local communities and natural ecosystems. The installation occupied a significant surface of public space, creating an alternative construction site – a signature mark for London in transition. Utilising the aesthetic of a temporary hoarding from the outside, the pavilion offers an unexpected forest-like experience from within.

The Building Site was inspired by a poetic narrative of Lithuanian writer, poet and philologist Vincas Kreve-Mickevicius’s novel ‘Herdsman and the Linden Tree’. The fictional novel describes the parallel lives of the oldest man and oldest tree in the village, exposing a human connection to nature and mapping how this relationship changed over time. Reflecting on the highly engineered environments of both humanity and nature, The Building Site seeks to represent the confrontation between the life of man and the living world in an age of rapid external pressures.

Over the course of the whole month of June, The Building Site hosted poetry readings, concerts, performances, video screenings and debates every weekend. During these events, the visitors had a chance to explore the diversity of unique contemporary interpretations of human relationship with nature.”

More: Sigita Simona Paplauskaite h/t: boredpanda

It brings a section of secluded Lithuanian forest in front of St Paul’s Cathedral

During the build up works, it was not known to be an art piece, whereas later it opened its door to public and was nourished by rich cultural event programme

The Building Site aimed to question the changing ownership of public-private land in London

It attracted over 17,000 active visitors during the month of June

The urban installation recreated a section of a forest reminding of growing ecological concerns in urban planning strategies

It occupied a significant surface of public space, creating an alternative construction site – a signature mark for London in transition

Reflective on the inside, it not only increased the interior volume, but as well gently reminded of its context – one of the most active and polluted streets in London

Utilising the aesthetic of a temporary hoarding from the outside, the pavilion offers an unexpected forest-like experience from within

Mesmerizing by its visual impact, the space accumulated woodland planting colours and scents

Tourists, locals and professionals – everyone was up for a debate about the ongoing urban planning processes and their consequences

The Building Site seeks to represent the confrontation between the life of man and the living world in an age of rapid external pressures

The composer Ruta Vitkauskaite offered a unique vocal and instrumental experience meanwhile sharing wi-fi headphones with those who could not fit inside the installation

Open daily, the Building Site welcomed visitors throughout all the month

Here’s where you can find it in London