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The heart of the Hothouse project is a massive heated glasshouse, fulfilling its requirements for energy, water and nutrients from the surrounding site.
Inside, plants will be grown using the principles of permaculture that will allow them to develop healthily as a natural looking “jungle”.
A large proportion of the site will be planted with special crops, grown in the open on a system of short rotation coppicing, which will be used as fuel to heat the glasshouse during colder weather.
The building itself, and adjacent areas, will be designed to maximise the collection and storage of solar energy using innovative techniques. These strategies will be monitored to provide information for growers who wish to adopt similar principles.
The project aims to offer therapy and education to school children and young people in care through hands on experience of the luxuriance of a tropical forest filled with plants growing for food or economic use.
The young people will be able to see, touch and smell the plants; pick and taste their fruit; sow seeds and watch them develop, all in an instructive and uplifting setting.
People living nearby will be able to buy fresh, locally grown exotic produce instead of food that has been transported to Britain from thousands of miles away. There will be selected plants for sale together with the information and materials necessary for people to provide suitable environmental conditions for growing them in their own houses, greenhouses, gardens or backyards. These plants will be shown growing in demonstration polytunnels on the site.
Visitor facilities will include a cafe, exhibition space and workshops selling craft and utility items made with products from the glasshouse.
