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PRESS RELEASE July 2nd 2013

ATMOS UNVEIL A DRAMATIC NEW DIGITALLY-CREATED INSTALLATION - AN INHABITABLETREE FOR THE CITY OF LONDON FESTIVAL - THE MOBILE ORCHARD

- LONDON -

Overview

The Mobile Orchard is a new public installation by atmos - an inhabitable hymn to the urban fruit tree,commissioned as the centrepiece for the City of London Festival.

Its exuberant design celebrates the wonder of trees, and offers a magical mutation - a welcomingstructure tailored to humans.

The project seeks to create a new kind of public landscape that merges the best of man-made designand organic nature. It offers a labyrinth of complex, intriguing, generous spaces that seek to nourishall the senses - celebrating both natural trees, and the communion of cities.

It centres on a large, sculptural timber oasis that doubles as immersive summer street furniture -morphing into seating, shelter, stairway and sky-throne.

Its undulating roots offer a landscape for lounging, including sinuous benches and molten armchairsthat cradle the gaze upwards through the hollow trunk.

Massive branches worm outwards from a dramatically leaning trunk to offer further seats, splaying to

form steps that flow upwards to a branch-clad throne at the tip.

A lightweight latticework of aluminium unfurls from the laminated plywood grains to support a canopyof laser-cut leaves - each blade a local London borough, with the host borough further subdivided intowards - the blossom and seeds of the project.

Electric LED lighting threads through its veins, uniting base and crown, its sinuous lines like section-cuts that graphically describe the segments of its core geometry, terminating in glowing bulbs ofmoon-light spots.

The installation is edible - cradling a constellation of real apples, refreshed daily, that are ripe for the

plucking by any member of the public.

It is accompanied by a choir of young fruit trees that, like the modular nature of the tree itself, willgrow over time, awaiting a future in schools and orchards across London.

The project will host a series of events and performances, including specially-commissioned theatreand music, a Fruit-Feast dinner and an Urban Picnic of gleaned fruit and veg from the team atFeeding the 5,000.

The Orchard moves each week to a new venue in the City of London before its young live trees aredistributed to schools and orchards across London, and its sculptural centrepiece donated to Treesfor Cities, who will tour it across Britain for 5 years.

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Designer's Statement

The design of the Mobile Orchard furthers atmos's ongoing investigations of natural forms, organicstructures, experiential ergonomics, digital fabrication, and innovative public landscapes.

In homage to the surfaces of its modernist host borough, the design originally proposed lightweightinterlocking laser-cut steel sheets, using curved folds to economically achieve large spans. Theevolution on towards a plywood solution developed for reasons of both cost and comfort, offering awarmer and more welcoming series of surfaces for the public to enjoy; the design of the secondarybranches retains the only trace of the original curved-fold sheet metal design.

Though natural in form, the project is centrally about people and interaction, collectivity - and cities. Itsforms ape humans, moulded to their bodies, mirroring their movements. Its branches offer its visitorsfood, and will host a range of eating events - a core interest of the studio, whose director createdLatitudinal Cuisine and Global Feast for the Olympics, merging design with fine-dining, stimulatingmind and body. Its entirety is intended to challenge and inspire, to enhance the public realm, andencourage exploration, play and interaction.

The installation was parametrically designed using scripts and algorithms that explore themathematical rules of growth so brilliantly exemplified by nature, enabling an unprecedented level ofhighly-resolved complexity. Its intense digitality complements atmos's intricate knowledge of analoguedetail and construction, and several members of the atmos team helped build the structure.

"This project was a unique opportunity for us to really grapple with the extraordinary beauty andcomplexity of trees. We've been designing projects that reference them - whether explicitly orunconsciously - for years, but never had the chance to share the stage with them, until now. Our initialarboreal research into tree growth patterns and geometries was extensive and productive, and helpedus literally grow this project from seed. Just as a tree benefits from a multitude of nutrients to aid itsgrowth, we have benefitted from an extraordinary ecology of people and organisations, who have allplayed a vital symbiotic role in helping bring this project to life."Alex Haw, Director, atmos

Itinerary

1st July: Devonshire Square, EC2M 4TH8th July: St Mary Axe, London EC3A 8EP15th July: New Street Square, London EC4A 3BF22nd July: Finsbury Avenue Square, London EC2M 2PGMap: http://goo.gl/maps/yuIzc

Resources

Project Website: http://www.mobileorchard.info/

Client's webpage on the project: http://www.colf.org/whats-on/703-mobile-orchard

Designer's website: http://www.atmosstudio.com

Please contact Alex Haw, atmos (a@atmosstudio.com, t: +44 (0)7815 040 619) for imagery requests,interviews and media matters

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Project Team

Design: atmosStructural Engineering: Blue EngineeringLighting Design: Arup

Lighting Sponsor: Architectural FX / LEDLinear / WibrePlywood Sponsor: DHH TimberFabrication: Nicholas Alexander + volunteersLogistics: Tellings TransportReal orchard trees donated by: YouGarden and The Worshipful Company of FruiterersMicrosite Web Design: 8fold

Client: City of London FestivalFestival Tree Sponsor: BloombergFunding Partner: Arts Council EnglandHosts: Broadgate Estates, Devonshire Square Management, Land Securities, 30 St Mary AxeManagement Company LtdSpecial Thanks: Sinead Mac Manus, Jonathan Perugia, Ed Gillespie, Olivia Sibony - and an

incredible team of brilliant volunteers

Notes to Editors

1 atmos is a multidisciplinary practice creating innovative works of art, architecture and design,spanning scales and media. They design buildings and objects, installations and landscapes conjuring meaningful, pleasurable, and enduring experiences. Much of their work involves cutting-edge design and fabrication technologies, complex structures, and digital mapping, exploring theconnectivity of people to their precise place in the world. They believe you can have both complexmeaning & incontestable beauty.www.atmosstudio,com

2 The City of London Festival brings the City's unique buildings and outdoor spaces to life eachsummer, with an extensive artistic programme of music, visual arts, film, walks and talks - much of itfree. It commissioned the Mobile Orchard for 2013 as part of an ongoing annual campaign to raiseawareness of environmental issues through artistic responses to the natural world - focusing this yearon urban trees. 64 real trees, donated by the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers, will accompany theconstruction around the City - 12 of which will be planted at Middlesex Street Estate to form the Cityof Londons first community orchard; the remainder to be distributed to schools around thecapital. The sculpture will be gifted to the Festivals partner charity Trees for Cities as part of their20

thanniversary celebrations, and tour the country.

http://www.colf.org/whats-on/703-mobile-orchard

3 Nicholas Alexanderwas chosen as fabricator for their previous experience of unusual, bespokeconstructions, logistics, and in-house digital fabrication expertise. Given the tight budget and largeamount of labour required, they organised a huge group of exceptional volunteers - all varying in skilllevels, but united by collectivity, enthusiasm and a passion for the project. The fabrication was alarge-scale collaborative effort with a high degree of knowledge transfer, and the formation of newsocial - and working - relationships.http://nicholasalexander.co.uk