Émilie Noël

Common Ground

In a world where cities grow denser and lives move faster, our daily lives are becoming increasingly distant from connection to nature and its rhythms. As urban environments prioritise efficiency and industrially manufactured food, medicine and objects, plant heritage, which used to be at the centre of communities, is becoming more of an abstract knowledge rather than a lived experience.

Located in the heart of Edinburgh within an old industrial warehouse, Common Ground is a multi-dimensional educational and community centre that aims to reintroduce plants in its visitors’ everyday lives. It re-integrates nature into the urban fabric just as it reintegrates plants into people’s daily lives.

Formerly used as a timber yard, the site has a history of transforming natural raw materials for human use. This relationship with nature is reactivated for a contemporary purpose at Common Ground.

Through a diverse and interactive educational approach, the hub gives them the practical tools to learn how to process plants for a more grounded and healthier mode of consumption. The centre’s programme and spatial transformation is particularly in Scotland, where there is such a strong plant heritage.

Common Ground targets a wide range of users encompassing locals, plant enthusiasts and practitioners, students, elderly people and even tourists who are seeking for an original way to learn more about Scottish heritage. By combining different approaches to learning and exchanging, knowledge circulates freely through the space. It provides a space that promotes intergenerational knowledge transmission and where knowledge circulates freely through the space.