As the Global North, as well as much of the Global South, decks its halls and shopping malls with the annual array of unsustainable boughs and baubles, and as forests of cut Christmas conifers are erected across the globe only to be junked at the end of the holiday season, it is heartening to highlight at least one instance where festive decorations actually benefit the environment.
Fleeting Forest brings a temporary grove of 36 living trees, some young saplings, others more mature, to Granary Square, a property and retail development behind King’s Cross Station. Designed by the Turner Prize-winning collective Assemble, in collaboration with Local Works Studio and the students of Central Saint Martins (which is based in a former warehouse on Granary Square), this arboreal installation is contained within fully compostable straw bale walls and chestnut fencing to create a human-scale refuge from the consumer-fest of the surrounding King’s Cross development.
“We wanted to offer an alternative to the traditional cut evergreen tree and to do something that would last beyond the three month lifespan of the project,” says Assemble’s Alice Edgerley. “Our ethos is to avoid waste and to be as resourceful and as nimble as possible.” To this end, the saplings and ground cover plants of Fleeting Forest were collected during habitat works as part of the conservation of Ashdown Forest in Sussex, while the installation’s more mature trees were sourced from a nursery just north of London to avoid polluting transportation. Here specimens were chosen especially because, not in spite of, their irregular appearance, often caused by weather damage or by animals and which, although not affecting their overall health, meant that these misshapen trees were harder to sell.
"Some of the birch trees have scars from where deer and other wildlife have nibbled at the bottom, and many of the other trees are a bit lopsided for various reasons—but they're all completely fine and they're very beautiful in their character," Edgerley says. "We want to celebrate thesewonky trees and to question where and how people put value," he adds. "Why is it that once size should fit all?"
The installation's 36 trees will either be replanted or recycled next year
In accordance with Assemble’s nimble resourcefulness, Fleeting Forest has been integrated into a much bigger, ongoing project. Assemble and Local works are already jointly regenerating Bramcote Park, a public park in south London, in partnership with Southwark Council and local communities. When Fleeting Forest comes down in February 2024, the trees will be permanently planted in Bramcote Park, while the rest of the biodegradable installation—the soil, straw, hazel stakes and smaller plants—will be donated to schools and community gardens in the King's Cross area. “Linking in with Bramcote Park meant that both projects could benefit and that we had a larger planting budget to acquire some really special mature trees to the advantage of both sites” says Edgerley.
The journey of these trees from leafy Kent to a south London park right by Millwall Football ground has also been marked by a soundscape created for Fleeting Forest by Cameron Bray, who works across architecture, art, radio and performance and in the architecture department of Central Saint Martins. Rather than the usual fare of Christmas carols and festive songs, visitors to this organic winter wonderland will be treated to the sounds of the weather and the wildlife of Ashdown Forest, as well as south London children playing and the noise of Millwall football fans.
Weather permitting, and presumably with the sound turned down, the plan is also for the temporary habitat of Fleeting Forest to serve as an inspirational open-air seminar room for students from neigbouring Saint Martin’s, as well as a chance for shoppers and visitors to ponder the choices we make and the benefits to be gained by a greener urban environment. As Fleeting Forest’s curator Rebecca Heald says, “it’s part of an ongoing commitment at King's Cross to thoughtful commissioning that isn’t all about the temporary and is respectful of the earth”.
However such admirable sentiments and the impeccable green credentials of Fleeting Forest sit rather uncomfortably alongside the fact that in nearby Drops Yard, another part of the King’s Cross retail and housing complex, the powers that be have also seen fit to install a 50 ft traditional Christmas tree which they proudly publicise as being “wrapped with 15,000 low power lights, three times as many as the previous year.” Old habits are still hard to break, it seems. But at least in Granary Square the trees have roots and a future life. That’s some cause for celebration. Happy Holidays!
• Fleeting Forest, Granary Square, King's Cross until February 2024