Living laboratory, landscape canvas

Kevin Frediani has one of Dundee’s most picturesque places for his everyday workspace. Spread across 9.5 hectares, and looking out over the banks of the River Tay, the University’s Botanic Garden houses a wide range of plants indigenous to Britain and drawn from across the world.

The garden welcomes more than 80,000 visitors a year and there are few finer spaces within the city to stop and relax, find some peaceful moments, and enjoy the flora and fauna around us.

It is also a hive of activity for artists, designers, researchers and students engaged in a multitude of projects. “This is the mix we need, to allow the garden and our other grounds to prosper, but also to help address some of the great challenges facing our planet,” said Kevin, who is Curator of the Botanic Garden.

“The combined challenges of climate change, population growth and the unsustainable use of natural resources locally and globally are resulting in the unprecedented loss of biodiversity and essential ecosystem services that support life on earth.

“Climate change requires new landscapes to be planned, designed and implemented to inform sustainable urban landscapes while conservation requires opportunity for plants to thrive in landscapes that will serve people’s needs today, while benefiting the diversity as it grows. To achieve this new landscape requires novel research while providing opportunities to collaborate in local placemaking.

“This is how we have set out our strategy, based around the concepts of ‘growing people growing places’ and the idea set out by Patrick Geddes, the first professor of Botany at the forerunner to the University of Dundee, to think globally while acting locally.”

This sets the garden as both a living lab and a landscape canvas.

“The living lab is a physical place where we both host and undertake research on the living collections in the garden and university grounds,” explained Kevin.

“Meanwhile the landscape canvas, including the garden and our exhibition space, is recognition that the design and cultural aspects of gardens as spaces that become places, is imbued with emotion from the actions of many people, and the environment.

“This has increasingly included designers, artists, and creative professionals, who collaborate to enable the garden as a place of enjoyment, education and engagement that is becoming an ever more valued cultural place in the city and an asset for Scotland.”

Kevin himself is involved as an Associate with the University’s UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, where he helps lead the Bioregional Tayside project that includes the River Ericht Catchment Restoration Initiative, and is a Co-Investigator for the Urban ReLeaf project with Mel Woods. 

The living lab is set to launch its own occasional academic journal this year, showcasing the research that collaborates with the garden from across the academic schools, plus some of the PhD students affiliated with the garden.

One of the projects that has spun out of the living lab as a PhD project is the Scottish Daffodil Project – sponsored by the Royal Society and in collaboration with STEM scientists from the James Hutton Institute and the School of Life Sciences.

This has resulted in published papers, posters and talks and empowered school children to undertake plant science in their own school labs. The project has now expanded across the UK to support 23 schools.

“This is just a flavour of the sort of project we can support and partner in,” said Kevin. “It is a very exciting time as there are plans to establish a new Eden Project in Dundee, and we are already engaged in so many good things.

“We have partnered for success in bringing forward a new project that is helping to codesign and enable nature-based solutions to improve human wellbeing, mitigate climate change and provide a place for biodiversity.

“We are also engaged with the Wee Forests initiative, Rewilding Dundee, Art from the Start, and many artistic and wellbeing community partners to host Playful Gardens to mention only a few.

“I am also involved in developing the potential for landscape restoration projects in partnership with The National Botanic Garden and Herbarium in Malawi and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, which links to the University’s Africa Initiative.

Visit the Botanic Garden website for more information.