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In photos: before and after The Lions’ Gate

Hello, apologies for the space between posts, 6 months this time – a new record, but hey there’s a whole world outside of the digital, and getting the balance right is important. Indeed, that’s a part of what The Lions’ Gate is about. Plugging into natural time. I’m old enough to remember stories of ‘burn-out’ in Silicon Valley, when Systems folks packed it all in and went and opened delicatessens or ran to the hills to homestead. Yes please, but try affording it now! These days the digital follows us everywhere, delighting and frustrating in equal measure – so, all the more reason to connect with things non-human, things other than our obsessive complexities, and perhaps, therein, open a space to realize – there really is only one eco-system – Mother Earth, and how she needs our help.

One metre square polyculture
One metre square polyculture – at the Kitchen Allotment

With The Lions’ Gate’s existence always hanging by a spiders thread, I thought it may help to provide a before and after photo diary, detailing the interventions made to a largely grey, angular, and biologically (bar humans), dead campus – an attempt to provide some medicine for a ravaged planet. 

As Gorillaz, on my Spotify playlist sang this morning – ‘individual actions change the world’. We should make time for them. Long, time.

An unloved, largely grey area of Merchiston Campus by the kitchens 2018

Kitchen allotment 2023

Fire escape route 2018

Fire escape route 2023

Devoid of life in 2018

Wild polyculture 2023

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The Lions’ Gate – shortlisted for the LUSH Spring Prize

I’m thrilled that the hard work of many volunteers, students and staff over the past few years, and the collaborative application efforts of Rachel McCrea, Clive Gee, and myself, has resulted in The Lions’ Gate being shortlisted for the LUSH Spring Prize in the Permaculture Magazine category. A big thank you to everyone involved along the way, and fingers crossed for success, which would enable us to employ a horticulturist and volunteer co-ordinator – securing the project going forward.

Lush Spring Prize

The Lions’ Gate is an on-campus garden laboratory, venue, outdoor classroom, bio-diverse habitat, and play-pit for doing sustainable things, that seeks to address the climate crisis head-on, influence policy and learning, and fundamentally work with nature for planetary and human health.

We are a solutions-focused group employing Permaculture Design Principles and Ethics to realise a green university, where community, health & well-being, creativity and quality learning and research are core to all our thinking and doing.

Food Forest

It’s been a challenging year but we’ve had many successes – fantastic creative input from SACI and SCEBE Placement Students – involving, murals, a green roof, ponds, a wayfinder, photography, 3D animations, branding, pergola design, and a bespoke environmental sensor system; amazing volunteer input from Paul Ardin (3 bin composter, trunk benches, dome development), a  wonderful community Open Day as part of the Climate Fringe; significant 4* recognition from REF 2021; association with Napier’s short-listing for the Times Higher Education University of the Year Award, and now a short-listing for the LUSH Spring Prize! Quite dizzying when I think about it.

Returning to the now, I’d just like to say a personal big thank you to current volunteer Tanya, a Ukrainian refugee, presently living with her family on a ship docked in Leith. Tanya is a trained horticulturist and has proved to be an extremely talented professional who has kept things going these past few months, regardless of arriving with virtually no English. Her circumstances have certainly put things into perspective for me.

Finally, none of our success would have been possible without you, so please get involved again in 2023, and in the meantime have a Mirthful Christmas and a Joyful New Year!

Tree benches and geodesic dome

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Thinking Back On The Lions’ Gate Open Day

Saturday 24th September 2022 1-5pm

Lions' Gate Open Day 2022

After much planning and impressive contributions from students, friends, colleagues, volunteers, performers, and over 100 participants, our Climate Fringe Festival, Great Big Green Week, and My Green Community Open Day enjoyed great success in the glorious September sunshine. The garden came to life through exhibits, performances and debate, not to mention massage therapy sessions in Merchiston library.

Lions' Gate Outdoor Classroom with Mojitos

At 1pm our event gently came together as people drifted through the 16th century arch to the laid-back, uplifting dubby sounds of DJ Someone’s Dad (SACI’s Dr Tom Flint). With last-minute signage and guidance from students and volunteers, participants wandered the garden grounds and library finding little delights in every nook and cranny. At one end, through the Food Forest, where we’re developing an outdoor classroom the wonderful SACI Student Placements team were serving up delicious Mint Mojitos and donated beers from Stewart Brewing, under our recently completed Green Roof, whilst SACI students Cyd Holoran and Leeloo Moreau worked on Cyd’s mosaic.

DJ Someone's Dad
Lions' Gate Green Man

Around 1.30pm, Heron Blue took the stage and lulled all with his gorgeous solo set, singing original songs and covers, backed by his sumptuous, spacey Fender Telecaster electric guitar work, seeping through the sweet tones of his effects board and amp. Heron Blue is actually Fraser McMillan who worked on the gardens as part of his SoC MSc last year. He was also instrumental in building the geodesic dome and helping me harvest Hazel wood for it from a wood-lined cycle-path to the west of the city.

Heron Blue
Cyd Holoran and Leeloo Moreau

Throughout the afternoon, visitors were able to engage with research and staff. Emily Hairstans provided tours of the garden spaces she had beautifully planted over the year. Brian Davison demonstrated the Grow Cube technology he’s developing as part of the Dandelion Festival. Through the library, on the rooftop allotment, SACI’s Professor Jaya Garrabost with the help of Cinematography lecturer David Byrne, and with great thanks to P&Fs Lee Murdoch for use of Merchiston’s kitchens, were serving up Aloo Subji and Chana Masala, alongside Sally Bennett’s not-one-crumb-left Homemade Lions’ Gate French Apple Cake and Tart, and Leeloo Moreau’s quickly-vanishing chocolate cookies.

French Apple Tart and Cake
Love in The Lions' Gate

In the library, 4th Year SACI students Andrew Waterhouse and Keir Flint exhibited their work on the gardens as placement students. Andrew displayed his elegant photographic close-ups and GIF animations, and Keir showed the humorous 3D ‘Garden Tour with Robots’ film he’d miraculously and accurately developed using Unreal Engine.

Andrew Waterhouse Exhibition

Visitors enjoyed the sublime holistic therapeutic talents of Edinburgh Napier Alumnus Emma Stout (Blue Butterfly Therapies). Emma provided 20 minute consultations, and was fully-booked throughout the day. Meanwhile, guests mooched, chatted, ate and drank, and lay in the sun on bean bags, with their friends and families and even their dogs.

Folk at The Lions' Gate Open Day 2022
Harry Bongo's Eco Sound System

Prior to our headline talk with Tim Ingold, Harry Docherty, SACI Music PhD student experimented with his ecological sound system, using environmental sensors as triggers for sounds, processed, synthesized and output through the PA as deep squelches and colourful washes, abrupt blips and mellow tones, complex and otherworldly in their scape.

Tim Ingold at The Lions' Gate Open Day 2022

At 3.30pm Tim Ingold took the stage, to an audience of around 60. Tim is Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at Aberdeen University and has been immensely influential across various disciplines. His talk ‘Generation Now’ reflected on the demise of intergenerational knowledge in modern society. As ever, Tim’s insightful storytelling journey provided a wealth of generative metaphors; bell curves, lines, ropes, layers and queues, to describe the epistemological textures of indigenous and modern networks. Tim’s public conversation in the garden, provoked debate amongst audience members, with plenty of time for questions. A big thank you to Dr Kirstie Jamieson for chairing the talk. You can find a cinema-veritesque audio of the talk here – sadly our recording equipment was playing up and we didn’t manage to capture the final part of the Q&A. However, the richness of Tim’s narrative eclipses the bark of a dog, the wail of a baby and the rasping exhaust of a boy-racer – it has a direct/concrete feel to it, and I for one like that.

Folk listening to Tim Ingold at The Lions' Gate Open Day 2022
Kirstie Jamieson, Tim Ingold, Callum Egan

With some reflection on the future of modern universities, Tim did go on to discuss the alt-university project he was part of at Aberdeen, details of which including their manifesto and campaign are here.

Well, that’s quite a long blog post so I’m going to wrap it up here. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen, not already mentioned; Peter Pryde and Alan Curtis in Properties & Facilities for their continuing support with building structures. The School of Computing, particularly Professor Ben Paechter and the Procurement Team. ENSA for moral, social media, and physical support. The Student Futures team for their back-breaking work on office away-days, cargo bike mechanic and volunteer Paul Ardin for his great cheer, amazing skills with a Japanese saw and all the work he did on the compost system, securing the trunk benches and finishing off the geodesic dome. Nicole Barrios and Grace Newbigging for their work on the pond, wayfinder and pergola. Clive Gee and Rachael McCrea in the Development Office for their help with trying to find funding, and you, if you’ve helped out in any way!

Our sustainable blended spaces provided a unique and inspirational background for a great celebration of community, or as one visitor described a ‘joyous hack’, and that appeals to my open-source ethos as well as the need for critical debate and action on climate issues. Universities can and should be places that are outward-looking, community-focused, where local people can meet to engage in sustainable practices and research.

There’s lots more to discuss about where The Lions’ Gate goes from here – it’s forever a precarious notion, so please do get in touch if you’d like to be involved.

callum.egan@napier.ac.uk

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Talk, music, food & drink, garden tours, holistic therapies, student exhibits at The Lions’ Gate Open Day

We still have a few tickets left for our Climate Festival and Great Big Green Week Open Day on Saturday 24th 1-5pm. You can get yours here.

Lions' Gate Open Day 2022
Entrance through The Lions’ Gate, 40m before Merchiston Campus main entrance on Colinton Road.

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The Lions’ Gate Open Day

The Lions' Gate Open Day

On Saturday 24th of September from 1pm – 5pm we’re throwing the gate open and inviting you to be a part of the Climate Fringe and the Great Big Green Week, supported by the Permaculture Association.

Headlining @ 3.30pm, we’re delighted to host influential, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at Aberdeen University Tim Ingold, who’ll be presenting his latest work ‘Generation Now‘ from our Storytelling Chair.

Tim has made a huge impact on design philosophy, and was a favourite of Edinburgh Napier’s late, great Prof. David Benyon, whose own design work on Blended Spaces has fundamentally informed The Lions’ Gate, to the extent that our work contributed to a Blended Spaces Impact Case Study awarded 4* in 2021’s Research Excellence Framework, denoting research quality that is world-leading in originality, significance and rigour.  What goes around…

Other wholesome and life-affirming activities of the day include:

  • Holistic Therapies by Emma J @ Blue Butterfly Therapies
  • Student exhibits from the School of Arts and Creative Industries
  • Campus-grown food
  • Cocktails and drinks
  • Music, including DJ Someone’s Dad
  • Garden tours
  • Plus more! Please get in touch if you’d like to be involved: callum.egan@napier.ac.uk

As we experience environmental and economic collapse, failures in geo, national and local politics, human health & well-being under siege, and a general sense of hopelessness, the day will provide an opportunity to share, unwind, discuss, listen and delight in what is possible, in our imaginative, permaculture-inspired, urban, campus garden.

The event is free but ticketed, so
please register here.

Look forward to seeing you on the 24th!

Climate Fringe

Great Big Green Week

Permaculture Association

The planet does not need more successful people. The planet needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.

Internet meme
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SACI and SRUC Placements and other bits and bobs

Cyd, Cal, Leeloo, Nicole, Grace and Keir by Andrew Waterhouse

Firstly, apologies for taking so long to write a new blog post. I’ve been incredibly busy, and ill with Covid, and I’ve changed roles at the university, and also I guess I’ve just been feeling somewhat exasperated by the failures of COP26 and trying to keep The Lions’ Gate going. But here I am, the sun is shining and my attempts to green the concrete of Merchiston campus and beyond continue, haphazardly perhaps, but spurred on by volunteers, staff and students. Actually, a big thanks has to go out to Alan Curits and Peter Pryde who are enabling some essential works over the next couple of months. However, access remains a thorny issue.

Envisioning The Lions’ Gate by Grace Newbigging

Since January I’ve been lucky to have Emily Hairstans working with me via a placement module from SRUC. Emily has been absolutely invaluable with her enthusiasm and passion for all things horticultural and I hope she can continue to pop by now the placement has come to an end. She’s the second student I’ve worked with via the SRUC placement scheme and I hope that the relationship with them continues into the future.

Logo designs by Lauren Stein

Also, since January I’ve been working with seven Creative Industries students in developing a number of interventions, (graphics of which are scattered throughout this post):

Cyrielle Dabere – a mosaic and the design of a green roof

Grace Newbigging – an outdoor classroom / pergola

Leeloo Moreau – lighting and signage

Lauren Stein – graphics, badges and a style guide

Keir Flint – a 3D model of the garden using Unreal Engine

Nicole Barrios – a pond with fountain and a wayfinder

Andrew Waterhouse – photography and animations

Badges by Lauren Stein

The work is ongoing, but it’s been a real delight to work with such creative souls, and Lindsay Morgan and Sophie Purchase in the SACI office have been a great help too, as have Cher and Jennifer in the Finance office.

Mosaic development by Cyrielle Dabere

Also, the Student Futures team are back helping out and it’s great to have them working on the development of our digital chamber area. They always bring cake too :).

Nicole’s Wayfinder ideation

A big thanks goes out to Niyamal from Edinburgh University who for the past six weeks has been a dedicated volunteer, but now moves on to his first proper job down in the big smoke as an Environmental Consultant. Good luck Niyamal, and ‘hello’ to Rachel our new volunteer!

Pond by Niyamal Ali

Finally, more details to follow but we’re running an open day in the garden on Saturday 27th August 1130-6pm. We have Tim Ingold giving a talk; music; food and cocktails from garden produce; student exhibits, and garden tours. Watch this space.

Testing Nicole’s fountain

If you and/or your students would like to get involved with The Lions’ Gate please just drop me a line: callum.egan@napier.ac.uk

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Hasten Slowly- an Interactive Memorial Storytelling Chair

Early on in the development of the Lions’ Gate Interactive Permaculture Garden, David Benyon and I hit upon the idea of an interactive chair as a place of congress for discussing ideas about sustainability. The chair would be augmented with appropriate technology that could record, comment on and publish talks. It would be an attempt at an ecological blended space.

Soon after, I contacted Neil Fyffe’s Workshop, one of Scotland’s finest examples of woodcraft, to enquire whether he’d be interested in crafting a storytelling chair augmented with digital technology, that would be put to work for the good of the planet.  Thankfully, he jumped at the idea, so we got down to design work.

With the sad passing of David in late 2018, Richard Thompson, whose PhD was being supervised by David when he fell ill, Andrew O’Dowd (School of Arts and Creative Industries), and I eagerly continued investigations into what would become a permaculture-inspired interactive storytelling throne and memorial to David.

Last summer (virtually due to Covid), we presented our second paper on The Lions’ Gate, and first specifically on the chair at LIMITS20. The previous year I’d presented a paper on The Lions’ Gate at LIMITS19 at LUT University in Lappeenranta, Finland – an institution fore-fronting sustainability and well-being in its strategy.

Well, to cut a long story short, we had our first speaker sat in the storytelling chair at our first (semi) public event in The Lions’ Gate on 26th August from 6-8pm. Inspirational, agent-of-change Graham Bell spoke eloquently of David’s favourite adage ‘Hasten Slowly‘ and shared his insights from over 30 years teaching permaculture. You can listen to the Hasten Slowly talk here.

And here’s a photographic journey of the storytelling chair:

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Lions’ Gate Talks on Soundcloud

Following last weeks first public event in The Lions’ Gate – Hasten Slowly, I’ve created a Soundcloud account to capture talks and make them available to all.

Graham Bell was the first to speak in our new interactive storytelling chair crafted by wood designer Neil Fyffe.

I’ll be writing a post on the event shortly but in the meantime here’s the talk and a photo of the chair:

The Lions’ Gate · Hasten Slowly – Graham Bell
Interactive Storytelling Chair
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Summertime in The Lions’ Gate

I’m sitting in The Lions’ Gate under the boughs of a rowan, in dappled sunlight and it’s most delightful. Birds are tweeting, bees are buzzing and nature’s bounty is putting on a bit of a show. Apple, medlar, plum and cherry trees are fruiting. Strawberries are ripening, herbs are flowering and our new lawn seems to have established itself as a soft and green shag-pile-like carpet ready for sun-worshippers to unwind upon.

As I finally relax after a busy day, supported by students from both Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier Universities, who tirelessly helped landscape areas of The Lions’ Gate in the glare of the sunshine, I thought I’d share a few updates on what’s been going on.

Photo of student volunteers in The Lions' Gate

Craiglockhart Orchard

Photo of Craiglockhart Orchard Team

Last Thursday an extraordinary Edinburgh Napier team made up of colleagues from the Development and Alumni Department (Clive Gee, Barbara Kidd, Geoff Day, Kirsty Connell-Skinner, Miia MacDougall, Avani Patel ,Mandy Duncan, Alan Bree, Ben Waite and Ashleigh Thow); Panagiotis Siokas, a Masters student in the School of Computing; and Ankit Dougal, former President of Edinburgh Napier Student Association, planted an orchard up in the delightful Craiglockhart campus grounds, betwixt the chapel and the wilderness area, which we hope to incorporate as part of a ‘thinking walk’, for the health & well-being of Edinburgh Napier communities.

Well, we got a great turnout. 14 willing, and more than able workers, planted 12 fruit trees from Appletreeman Andrew Lear (10 apples – Jupiter, Bloody Ploughman, James Grieve, Lord Derby, and Beauty of Bath), two Victoria plums, and a silver birch in a loosely mandala-like layout, in alignment with the cardinal points of the chapel. Each tree also has a companion plant or two from this list (purchased from Sarah Wilkington’s Plants with Purpose nursery up in Perthshire):

  • Mugwort Oriental limelight
  • Wild bergamot
  • Bronze bugle
  • Golden creeping Jenny
  • Evening primrose
  • Flax/Linseed
  • Fox and cubs
  • Goats beard
  • Hemp agrimony
  • Marsh woundwort
  • Mullein
  • Nottingham catchfly
  • Orpine
  • Scots lovage
  • Teasel
  • Valerian all heal
  • Water avens
  • Yarrow
  • Yellow loosestrife
  • Yellow toadflax

It should be a great spot. It gets sunshine all day, and though we’ll be looking to provide some seating – sitting on the grass, in the height of summer with nature blossoming all around, will provide much enjoyment, as well as fruit, jams, desserts, chutneys, juice, cider, vinegar etc, and opportunities for seasonal community events, at harvest-time especially.

After two and half hours of hard work and good cheer, this spirited group of fine folks, enjoyed delicious refreshments provided by our Development and Alumni friends, and there was a real sense of accomplishment and community. People coming together for the first time in a long while is something I’ve been experiencing quite a lot of, of late in The Lions’ Gate, and it’s uplifting to be around that positive energy. So, a huge thanks to everyone involved.

Colleagues also discussed how it would be a great idea to associate the orchard with The War Poets Collection and I’m hoping this is something we can take forward.

This work was made possible by a successful collaboration between ENSA, The Lions’ Gate and the Development Office, gaining funding via the Community Climate Asset Fund. There are more actions to carry out with regards this funding – raised beds at both Sighthill and Craiglockhart campuses, so please get in touch with the Sighthill Gardening Club or Miles Weaver from The Business School up at Craiglockhart, to get involved.

Student Futures team volunteering

Over the past month or so a wonderful team of volunteers from Student Futures have been helping out at The Lions’ Gate – clearing weeds, building soil, planting herbs, shrubs and flowers, moving trees, landscaping, and having lots of fun in the process. They’re even planning a few pallet projects. As can be seen below, the raised-beds around the staging area are now looking great, thanks to a donation of plants from the Secret Herb Garden, and the contribution made by the team. They’re booked-in to volunteer every month now, and we have a team from Marketing and External Comms helping out next week. If you’d like your team to volunteer then please just drop me an email: callum.egan@napier.ac.uk.

Lions’ Gate Fringe Show – Hasten Slowly

On Thursday 26th of August we’re creating a little Fringe show in The Lions’ Gate. At present the plan is to open the gardens to around 30 participants in a relaxed atmosphere to learn about what we’re up to. There’ll be music, a talk by leading permaculturist Graham Bell, pizza and tea made from garden produce, a hands-on ‘how to plant a food forest’ activity, displays of our future plans (the digital bothy and the outdoor classroom), a wishing tree linked to COP26, an interactive audio tour, a plastics recycling game, and the unveiling of our interactive storytelling, memorial chair to the late, great Professor of HCI David Benyon. David was instrumental in getting The Lions’ Gate going, and one of his favourite idioms was ‘Festina Lente’ – Hasten Slowly, thus the name of the event.

If you’re interested in helping out with this ‘happening’, please get in touch: callum.egan@napier.ac.uk.

Here are some development photos of the interactive, memorial storytelling chair – an interdisciplinary project between the School of Computing and the School of Arts & Creative Industries (Andrew O’Dowd and Richard Thompson); and a shot of the ready-to-be-installed trunk bench that’ll sit under the canopy of the 120 year old sycamore in The Lions’ Gate, both crafted by Neil Fyffe down in Selkirk.

Cheers for now.


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Campus Sustainability Climate Action Land and nature stewardship

Views from the edge of Auld Reekie

On The Beach
For the past six weeks, having watched Seaspiracy, and been shocked into action, I’ve been picking up litter from a beach I pass on my morning cycle. It’s a potentially beautiful spot where the Dolphinton Burn meets the Firth of Forth, and swans, geese, ducks, oystercatchers, and gulls are just some of the birds you’ll see on any day by the water.

However, the Firth of Forth is, as a dog walker proclaimed this morning – ‘a dirty river’. Too true, I bought myself a litter picker and armed with it and a bag I’ve now an intimate relationship with human trash. Tyres, plastic bottles and tops, sanitary towels, a lot of sanitary towels, innumerable pieces of plastic of all sizes and types, shoes, lots of shoes, clothing, ropes, wipes, food packaging, fibrous and congealed human-made materials, just about anything you can think of that humans make and nature has to suffer. I always think of a whale or dolphin or any sea creature consuming this stuff, and the complete misery of that vision is sobering. I can clear that beach, just about, in a month, but then it all comes back again. How not to despair?