Somers Town Garden Project Allotments
© The Francis Crick Institute

We want to play an active role in the local community. As well as holding events and meetings to consult on our plans for the Institute we are keen to run projects in partnership with community organisations.

Designed to provide recreational and educational activities for people of all ages, these projects also give us the opportunity to get to know more about local people and to benefit from their experiences.

Some of our recent projects are listed below. Just click on the title to find out more.

1. Tree of Life project, December 2011

   In December 2011, The Francis Crick Institute commissioned the Tree of Life project, to engage local communities with science through art.

   

   A tree of life workshop at St Aloysius Juniors
   © Lizzie Burns

   Inspired by images of life under the microscope (such as cells, viruses and bacteria), young people from the local area worked with artist and scientist Dr Lizzie Burns to create colourful sculptures to decorate festive trees at home and school. The winning entries from each school/community group were then hung on a special tree in the Wellcome Trust building.
   
   During the workshops participants also got to meet scientists from the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research and Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute (two of the Crick's partners), and to find out more about the Crick.
   
   More than 200 people took part in the project, with sessions at St Aloysius Infants and Junior Schools, St Mary and St Pancras School, Edith Neville School, Somers Town Community Centre and St Pancras Church.
   
   "Me and my child had a wonderful time. Fantastic workshop, lovely people, fantastic paintings," said one parent, while a Year 5 pupil from Edith Neville Primary School commented: "Art and science is so fun – I like this kind of thing."

2. Hoardings project, Spring 2011

   While The Francis Crick Institute is being built, hoardings around the site will protect people and property from the building works.

   To brighten up the 3.6 metre high walls we sponsored a project to create an eye-catching open-air art gallery that would inform passers-by about the important medical research that will be carried out at the Institute when it opens in 2015 as well as what was being built on the site.

   The Invisible Man, the social enterprise managing the project, organised art workshops at local schools, youth groups and community organisations.

   With the guidance of local artist Laila Brown, local children, young people and senior citizens created art based on scientific or medical topics including the story of medicine, today’s big health challenges and epidemics of the past.

   Individual works were grouped together to create 10 murals, each based on a different theme. The murals cover a total of 170 metres and will be on display until the building is completed.

   You can visit the site at any time to see the art created by participants from One Housing Youth Project, Argyle Primary School, New Horizon Youth Centre, St Pancras Community Association’s Art Group, St Pancras Community Association’s ‘SHED’ Project, One KX, St Aloysius Primary School, and the Calthorpe Project.

   A selection of individual images from the hoardings is below.

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   © The Francis Crick Institute

3. Digging up the past, April 2011

   

   Exploring the past at the site of The Francis Crick Institute.
   © Museum of London Archaeology

   Before any building work could start on the land earmarked for The Francis Crick Institute, archaeologists from the Museum of London explored the site.

   They found the remains of the Somers Town Goods Yard, built on the site in 1887. This was a large distribution centre for perishable goods such as milk and fish brought to London every day from the east of England and the Midlands. It was demolished in the 1950s and 1960s.

   After the initial exploration, we opened the site to the public. The archaeologists gave visitors conducted tours of the excavations and explained the history of the site.

   The event attracted hundreds of visitors from across London and beyond.

4. The Somers Town Garden Project, 2010

   

   
   

   While plans for The Francis Crick Institute building were being finalised, we funded a community gardening project to make good use of the land while it lay empty.

   Run by the London Wildlife Trust, the scheme gave more than 100 local people the chance to grow their own food. The project ended in December 2010 to allow building work to start. The raised-bed allotments are now being used to grow food and flowers at other sites in the area such as Coopers Lane and Edith Neville School.

   London Wildlife Trust Project Manager Phil Paulo said: "Many of those who took part want to continue, so we were delighted to be able to relocate many of the allotments in Somers Town."

   One local gardener said: "We loved the scheme as we don't have our own garden and it gave us the opportunity to grow our own organic food."

   If you, or your community group, are interested in growing your own food, contact the London Wildlife Trust on 020 7833 2311 or ppaulo@wildlondon.org.uk.