Our planet is changing, bringing new challenges to the way we live. To adapt we will need the best of our imagination and creativity, technology, science, our humanity and vision. We will need strong communities and a clear understanding of what is valuable in life. In answer to this, the awe-inspiring oasis, desert, water gardens and underground chambers inside the Edge will be somewhere to inspire and explore new solutions, rethink our values, our goals and work together to create a positive future.

The Edge will be a landmark new building to represent the next evolution of Eden. In the six years since opening the centre, their vision has evolved, as has the network of organisations and communities they have worked with. The context for the new structure will be the oncoming water crisis, the challenges in the supply of energy and the impacts of these changes to our climate. It is not, however, a building about climate change; it is a building because of climate change.

The Edge will be a beautiful and dynamic blend of architecture, technology, science and the arts. A series of interlocking underground chambers will provide spaces for some of the great voices of the age artists, writers, scientists and musicians to work with communities and families and share the best ideas they have for improving their lives and environments, now and in the future.

The Edge will look back to understand how people coped with change in the past: the great social transformations. It will look sideways at the people and plants who live on ‘the edge’ today and the ingenious solutions they have come up with. It will look forward to explore how people are facing up to the issues of today and tomorrow; what skills, ingenuity and ambition we need in order to make creative and workable responses to difficult but not impossible circumstances.

“I believe that if we get it right, the Edge could be one of the most important buildings ever built. Not because of its structural form, but because of its ambition to create a setting for asking big questions of interest to all of us: What makes humans content? What lessons from the past can inform the future? The answers to most of them lie not in the realm of technology, but in the building of healthy, safe and inspired communities drawn together by a narrative for the future they can believe in. In truth it is the theatre for the development of this story that we are wanting to build,” says Eden“s chief executive, Tim Smitt.

The project has joined five other major projects in the UK on the short-list for the Big Lottery Fund’s £50 million Living Landmarks award. Ultimately the winning project will be decided by a televised public vote this December. “This is a great opportunity for Eden and Cornwall but for us to be chosen as the Landmark Project we will have to win support from all around Britain. The Edge will explore what it is to live with the grain of nature. It is a project for our time and is arguably the most challenging and essential call to arms for our generation.” says Tim.

If you would like to support the Eden Project to build the edge you can vote online at: www​.thepeoples50million​.org until the vote closes at 12 noon on the 10th December.

Contact: www​.theedge​.org
To vote: www​.thepeoples50million​.org​.uk
To watch a film about the Edge:
www​.theedge​.org/​v​i​d​e​o​s​/​f​i​l​m​1​.​htm