Ellerslie International Flower Show 2010
0800 POOL HIRE - Site Number: EG8


About the designer

Craig Pocock has lived and worked extensively in design and project management in New Zealand, Jordan, Palestine, India, Australia and the United States.

His firm is presently based in Christchurch New Zealand from which he teaches, runs a research workshop, and works on projects internationally.

He has been involved in a number of critiques and lectures at Philadelphia University and Yale University in the Schools of Architecture (USA) and Lincoln University School of Landscape Architecture (New Zealand).

Craig’s design practice spans a range of design scales from city structure plans and urban grown studies to residential design.

Craig has been instrumental in developing a “carbon landscape” paradigm that considers the impacts of landscape architecture on the climate and environment. He is presently working on a materials selection list for New Zealand landscape architecture.

The Premise

It is popular belief that landscaping is good for the environment due to its literal “greening” nature of the process. Most people recognise landscapes’ and gardens’ positive impacts on the environmental aesthetics and community well being, few question their possible negative impacts. Landscape design is one of the few design disciplines that almost always enjoys positive feedback from the community and clients with few questioning landscape design,material selection, implementation ,ongoing maintenance and the associated environmental impacts of these landscape stages.

It is understood by some that there is a negative environmental impact to landscape, such as the carbon footprint of materials. Unfortunately it is also assumed that whatever negative impacts there are within landscape design and implementation are offset by the planting within the environment.

Plants do consume carbon dioxide but they also release a portion of the stored carbon dioxide again at night making them inefficient carbon sinks that cannot possibly offset the carbon heavy materials used with the landscape industry such as concrete, steel, stone, plastics and chemicals. A typical landscape with a 10% hard landscape material cover is still unlikely to be offset by the 90% plant coverage. This is due to the imbalance between the embodied energy of the materials used versus the plant’s ability to sequester carbon. The very high carbon value of landscape materials significantly outweighs the environments ability to mitigate the carbon cost, let alone the raw material, energy consumption, atmospheric, soil and water pollution within the environmental profile of those hard landscape materials.

If landscape design is to improve its environmental footprint it has to address the materials industry. More importantly landscape designers have to create landscapes that are either incredibly enduring and timeless, outlasting fashion to maximise their material’s environmental footprint over the course of decades OR landscape designs must use materials and components that are flexible and adaptable that can be dismantled and reapplied elsewhere so that the embodied energy and environmental profile of the materials are never lost to the landfill. This final approach could be call a cradle to cradle design approach and is the approach we have taken to our exhibit design for the Ellerslie International Flower Show.

The Concept

The best way to describe the “cradle to cradle” design approach to “0800 Pool Hire” is to pull each of the components of the design apart, track where they came from, asses how they function in the design and where they will go after the show:

Pools:

Two 9.5m cubic skips were used to create the pools. They were functioning skips being used for construction waste. We selected the company Container Waste to supply the skips because they have a strong environmental policy with all their construction waste going to Becan Canterbury Limited for sorting and recycling. The art on the side of the skip is a play on the idea of sweeping environmental issues under the carpet. After the show the skips will go back to their industrial role of collecting industry waste but will retain the new art work on the side in the hope that the art will spark conversation on the street.

Pool colour:

The powder blue was selected as it reminded me of hot summer days at school going to the school pool to learn to swim. The over the top powder blue colour of the school pools was always associated with relief from the heat and school lessons. At a time when school pools are being closed down around the country due to lack of funding it seemed like an appropriate colour and reminder of the importance of teaching our children to swim in a country surrounded by water.

Wetland filters:

We wanted to create a wetland filtration swimming pool to show people that it is a possible alternative to the chemical heavy swimming pool industry in New Zealand. The filters are made from two 3.5 cubic waste skips which like their bigger versions were in use at the time we requested them. Maccaferri New Zealand supplied us the filtration boxes and pumps for the show and the boxes will be returned for use in other future projects. The stone was “rented” and will be returned back to the supplier after the show for use in a future project somewhere.

Shipping container:

A shipping container was selected as the pavilion for two reasons; shipping containers are becoming a major community problem in many western cities. As western nations import more than they export they create a excess of carbon heavy steel shipping containers with no destination, a landscape pavilion is a positive use for this otherwise left over “tradewaste”. The second reason a shipping container was chosen was to highlight their flexibility within design due to their uniform structure and dimensions making them good building blocks. The container will be made into a room for my office after the show.

Plants:

Raupo was chosen not just for its ability to act as a filter but more so due to its problematic abundance in a public wetlands/lake reserve call the Groynes on the north side of the city. The plant was removed from an area in the Groynes for use in the exhibit by the combined effect of council rangers and PD workers and after the show will be composted. The exhibit was a short reprieve for the 200 plants pulled out of the reserve.

Gravel:

Local gravel was selected because of the all the paving surfaces available it has one of the lowest embodied energy values compared to that of concrete and other pavers. In addition ithad travelled very little distance from it raw source to manufacturing and then onto the show. After the show the gravel will be used in my backyard landscape.

Timber:

Old recycled New Zealand Oregon Pine was selected from Musgroves Limited who recycle and sell building materials. It was intentional to select old greyed timber with past paint jobs still applied in the hope the contrast between the dressed surface with the rough exterior would demonstrate the enduring beauty of the timber and the value of considering recycled materials vs. buying new. New Zealand Oregon Pine was also selected as it was felt that recycled NZ native timbers such as rimu still have an important role to play in the restoration of old houses and hence was inappropriate to use in the landscape. The Oregon Pine will be used after the show to make outdoor furniture.

Container flooring:

New Zealand Eco Plywood has been selected for the floor of the shipping container for its polished contrast to the other industrial elements within the landscape. Plywood uses waste wood materials to form a usable timber sheet making plywood a more sustainable product compared to many of the offshore hardwoods that are typically used in New Zealand landscapes. The plywood will become a permanent part of the shipping container office after the show.

Fence:

Recycled corrugated iron was sourced from Musgrove’s and used as the backdrop to the exhibit. A group of local artist were used to turn what most people would consider an old and tired fence into a 16m long piece of art. The artist’s brief was do what every they wanted but to leave the last 3m of fence in its original condition at each end to show people what the fence looked like before “Graffiti” was applied in a hope that people would start to understand the value of street art.

The group of young artist work with a program call “Project Legit” which works on getting taggers off the street and into legitimate street art and other forms of art. We used Project Legit as it seemed like a good opportunity to expose the work of this community group to the Ellerslie International Flower Show’s tens of thousands of public visitors.

The 16m of art fence will be auctioned on TradeMe at the end of the show and all proceeds donated to Watersafety New Zealand in the hope that it will help children to learn to swim.

The name:

The 0800 portion of the name of the exhibit is a reference on the ease in which business makes it possible for us to over consume in everyday life. The pool hire portion of the name is a play on the idea of transferable landscape in which an object such as a portable swimming pool could be developed and shared within a community as need requires, and then moved on so that the materials and energy required to create the pool is never lost to the community. The pools could have been made from other objects but we wanted people to question where beauty can lie within an environment including industrial items that you would not normally consider recreationally functional or beautiful.

Craig Pocock
Director of
Pocock Design Environment Limited