May Project Gardens is a grassroots organisation reconnecting urban communities with nature for their personal, social and economic transformation. At Ian Solomon-Kawall’s invitation, Dana and Paulina Sidhom, in collaboration with David Murray (carpenter), designed and constructed an ecological outdoor classroom on May Project’s premises. 

Following low-impact principles, the construction features straw bales walls, a foundation made of railway sleepers filled with recycled foam glass, timber windows, and a lime render and clay plaster finish. The project was delivered in collaboration with unaccompanied Eritrean refugee minors regularly participating in May Project’s Hip-Hop Garden programme. The project facilitated exchanges between different cultures, with traditional building techniques, stories, laughter, and lunches shared throughout. 

The British education system makes no effort to prepare for the young refugees’ arrival, and only provides them with basic English language and Maths courses which they already master. The young men intend to use the classroom as an inclusive space for collaborative learning, as well as a safe space for gathering, away from discriminatory practices such as Stop and Search, which they are regular victims of. The alternative, off-grid outdoor classroom will provide workshops in ecology (growing food, preserving wildlife, foraging, permaculture, natural remedies), regenerative economy (circular economy, getting funding, understanding the importance of policy), wellbeing, and culture, and involve new ways of thinking about connections and context around these subjects through adjacent disciplines such as psychology, history, and more.

Photo credits: Dana Olărescu, Paulina Sidhom, Maria Tânjală