The Tree Temple is a long-term place-and-community-making process for variable public or semi-public urban spaces with a participatory approach on Living Architecture (tree shaping).
It’s mission is to foster the cultivation of a more attentive and more appreciative relationship to other-than-human life in a playful manner.
The process is initiated and organised via The Tree Temple board game, which immerses the participants into the mission and facilitates the envisioning and planning of both the material and cultural dimension.
The Place-Making Dimension:
Designing and growing a Tree Temple garden from living trees with Living Architecture
Gradual tree shaping is an ancient method of gradually shaping and merging living trees into an artificial shape for the purpose of growing self-bearing living structures such as buildings (Living Architecture) or design objects and sculptures (Arborsculpture).
Growing a communally planned temple structure over years implies a learning-by-doing process regarding local ecology, tree lore and the specific behaviour and needs of the involved trees.
Habituative responsibilities like care-taking routines and shaping procedures, foster the development of an intimate dialogues relationship with the trees among the participants.
The Community-Making Dimension:
Developing the temple as a cultural place
The communities interpretation and enlivenment of the temple garden include the negotiation of shared values and visions for the place as well as the generation of cultural rituals around the material tasks, which further support the recognition of the trees as active participants.
It invites intergenerational and intercultural exchange around the shared object of care and creation.
The Tree Temple is not only a processual living structure, but also stands for a communally negotiated vision about how a flourishing temple garden would be like. The social flourishing is represented by the health and shape of the growing structure.
Metaphorically speaking: We plant a vision and let it grow.
The Game
The Tree Temple board game is the essential tool to initiate and organise the participatory process. It comes into play once a group of participants and a plantable space are defined. It is suggested for 11-66 players and to be played in several sessions.
The game guides the players through four phases: preparation, culture, temple & calendar. When everything is planned and modelled, the real life endavour can begin with the tree planting event, the inauguration.
1. Preparation
2. Culture
3. Temple
4. Calendar
