Project: AZURE Human/Nature Conference
Climate Change Mitigation in Architecture and Design
Client: AZURE Publishing
Customer Experience Design Team: Gelare Danaie, Karen Zwart Hielema, Bianca Weeko Martin, Majid Abbasi, Ramin Beyraghdar
Project Completion: October 2024
Penelope: a forty-five-year-old Austrian Pine formerly rooted at Innis College at the University of Toronto since construction of the college in 1976. Taken down in her prime, August 28, 2023, for building expansion. Keen to return to Innes College as a desk in the student lounge in 2025 and eavesdrop on student angst and contentment once again.
Willow: an eighty-eight-year-old Weeping Willow who lived until diseased and in danger of falling in a backyard in North York until the Autumn of 2020. Within earshot of recess times at Swansea Public School and views in her older years from her tippy top to the Humber River and Grenadier Pond. Now in pieces at the Evergreen Brickworks Children’s Garden.
Trees have their own ways of communicating. They rely on one another to share sunlight, resources, and intertwined clumps of roots underground. What can we learn from listening in on their conversations?
Penelope lounges on the sofa in the conference room, opens her eyes and discovers another tree. “Hey there!”
Willow looks at her with curiosity. “Hello! I think I know you from across the wood lot, right? … out in Scarborough.”
Penelope didn’t recognize her; she was used to seeing that gnarly side of hers. “Hmm… you’re Willow?”
Willow nods, readjusting her position. “Trees invited to a human/nature conference. Who would have thought it possible! Thank goodness for complementary tickets. I heard they were expensive.”
Penelope stretches her back. “What’s it called again?” “Human – Nature?” “I think they’ll be talking about how we can work together.”
Willow sighs, “I don’t trust these humans, they just talk!”
Penelope sips her coffee. “Well, I took a look at the speaker line up and they’ll be talking about some pretty cool projects.”
“Yeah, but even so - all they talk about is themselves, human-centered design! What about us?”
“Oh, come on Willow, not all of them. They’re learning. Slowly.” She eyes the book in front of Willow, Margaret Atwood’s ‘Old Babes in the Wood: Stories’. She recalls how other trees talked about Willow’s wisdom.
Willow sets down her cup. “You still have that young optimism. How old are you?”
Penelope is a little giddy. “Well yeah, I’m young. I was rooted for 44 years. And have been hanging out on the wood lot for another year. In pieces, waiting ...”
“Ouch! That's not long to be growing – what happened?” Willow thinks how Austrian pines can grow to 500 years, only 44.
Penelope tells her that humans needed to expand the building, and she was in the way. Suddenly she gets excited, “But I’m going back - imagine! I’m moving indoors, to be a desk!”
“Interesting... most of my pieces are at the brickworks, kids crawling all over me - don’t mind it though.”
“You are such a grandma! How old are you?”
“Eighty-eight.”
“Wow, you were rooted a long time for your kind,” exclaimed Penelope. “Weeping Willows usually top out their growth years around 70.”
“Yeah, longer than expected, and I’m still around, still wild at heart.” She winks.
Penelope laughs, “So we live on – what did they call it? … circular economy?”
Willow grudgingly admits. “They really need us, don’t they?”
Penelope listens to music, Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’, sees people in the conference as she speaks softly, “I can remember the animated conversations under my canopy…. couples embracing, students chilling as I worked my magic.”
“Oh, I can relate.” sighed Willow “The family that grew up under my branches had the most relaxed outdoor meals in my shade,” she remembers the urge to hug them – good memories.
“Ok, so you’re not so skeptical anymore,” said Penelope finishing her coffee.
“Mmmm... we trees and humans are deeply connected - we just need to listen to each other.”
