Eden or the world’s largest greenhouse, a project with more than 10 million visitors

In Cornwall, UK you can find the world’s largest greenhouse, appropriately named Eden. It’s part of a more complex project and it includes a series of domes that form two large volumes and that are home to amazing plants collected from all over the world. Each dome emulates a different environment. The first one is a tropical environment while the second one is Mediterranean. They are built from hundreds of hexagons and pentagons supported by steel frames.

The Eden project was designed by architect Nicholas Grimshaw. It took the team 2.5 years to complete it and it was opened to the public on March 17th 2011. The tropical dome covers an area of 1.56 hectares and is 55 meters high, 100 meters wide and 200 meters long. It houses tropical plants and trees such as banana, coffee, rubber trees as well as giant bamboo. The Mediterranean dome covers only 0.654 hectares. It measures 35 meters high, 65 meters wide and 135 meters long. It’s home to plants such as olives and grape vines as well as a series of beautiful sculptures.

Besides these two domes there’s also an outdoor biome. This one is not covered and it represents the temperate regions of the globe. It has plants such as tea, lavender, hops, hemp and sunflowers. The covered domes were built without using glass. This material was avoided because of its weight and the potential dangers. The panels are made of thermoplastic ETFE which are sealed and inflated.{pics by Mark Vallins, A1personage, Miflandia, nerys hamutal}.