The MEMO Project

As promised I want to tell you about my evening at Adjaye Associates which is related to the fabulous MEMO Project.

I first came across MEMO when I met Sebastian Brooke late last year.

Sebastian is the driving force behind MEMO, a monument to biodiversity which is being planned at Portland in Dorset. MEMO is fantastic- a one hundred and twenty metre high open structure, coiled like a titanic ammonite eroded from the Jurassic coast.

Visitors will be able to climb the monument using the spiral ramp, whilst admiring the thousands of carvings of plants and animals, designed by school children from across the UK.



This is a scale replica of the Hooke Bell

 At the heart of the monument will be the Hooke Bell a massive bronze bell (planned to be the largest in Europe), cast from bronze using a portland stone mold. The bell will be like the Lutine Bell in Lloyds of London and will be struck on Earth Day to celebrate biodiversity and commemorate species which have become extinct.  

Planning for the £20 million pound project is well underway. Dorset County Council have granted planning permission, and Adjaye Associates have drawn up detailed plans for the monument and the visitors centre, which will bring much needed economic development to this part of Dorset.

So what was I doing at Adjaye Associates? Well the City of London has a strong connection to Portland as many of the buildings in the City of London are built with Portland Stone. We also have a strong connection to biodiversity- not only do we manage a third of London's best loved open spaces, but Robert Hooke, the father of biodiversity was City Surveyor from 1666 to 1674 and oversaw the re-building of the City following the Great Fire in 1666.

Sebastian contacted me to see if I could help him spread the word on MEMO project in order to get support and sponsorship. I have been putting him in touch with various people in the City.

The event at Adjaye Associates was an opportunity to meet some of the other project supporters and hear about the latest developments. I was tremedously impressed by the callibre of people who were there Sir Tim Smit (who created the Eden Project),  Sir Ghillean Prance (former director of Kew) and a brace of other well know faces from the worlds of politics and the environment. The Duke of Edinburgh has also made a personal commitment to the project and will be hosting a fund raising dinner at Buckingham Palace.

I will let you know how the project develops.