Growing Gardens Project: Fizzy Bottle Roof

Made by the people for the people

60 old for sale sign posts, 350 mtrs of plastic water piping, 5 sheets of old building site hoarding, 2 old scaffold planks and the sweat of over 180 volunteers. Not your normal shopping list for a roof, but the Fizzy Bottle Roof is'nt a normal roof.

On the 30th of May 2010 residents of the community of Merton made there way down to the Growing Gardens Project at Deen City Farm, London, to turn 5000 plastic bottles into a roof.

Money donated by a regular visitor and admirer of the garden made the project possible, a guesture of good will that proved contagious. The help and enthusiasm just kept coming. Over the months leading up to the Fizzy Bottle Community Build Day, residents bought down their collected bottles by the bin bag loads. So many so that we had to call upon the charity of local storage company, who were only too hapy to help out.

The roof shares the philosophy found in allotments and city farms. It's about making do with what you have. All the materials used in the construction of the roof are familiar urban waste materials collected from the surrounding neighbourhood.

True art is built by the people for the people

A quote from William Morris who would have worked on the same banks of the River Wandle over 100 years ago, joint founder of the art and crafts movement and an active socialist. I speculate he would be happy to be quoted in conjunction with the Fizzy Bottle Roof Project.

The project has enjoyed recognition for it's efforts scooping many well deserved awards over the years including the Guardian Green Building Award.