WIREDGOV

A Gold medal winning garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2015 established permanent roots in the North West recently, when it officially re-opened at Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire.

Sponsored by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), with support from Liverpool John Moores University, the National Schools’ Observatory Dark Matter Garden has been carefully moved and rebuilt, piece by piece, at its new permanent home at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory, at Sci-Tech Daresbury in Cheshire, where it will be officially re-opened by Graham Evans MP. 

A true North West creation, the garden was designed by Liverpool’s Howard Miller Design and built by Chester-based company, Landstruction. 

Professor Susan Smith, Head of STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory said: “The relocation of the garden to STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory will ensure that its legacy in promoting this area of science continues for years to come.  It is a work of art in its own right and will be a fascinating added attraction for the thousands of visitors we host here every year, through our many school visits and our popular public engagement programme.”

The Dark Matter garden enjoyed outstanding success at the 2015 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, winning a gold medal and best in the ‘Fresh’ category. The garden illustrates the mysteries of Dark Matter - the ‘stuff’ that is believed to make up a big percentage of our Universe but that cannot be seen. It has been widely praised for its innovative thinking in bringing science to new audiences. 

Professor Andy Newsam, Director of the National Schools’ Observatory at Liverpool John Moores University, which organised the garden, said: “Dark Matter is simply a kind of matter that cannot be seen by telescopes. It fascinates people all over the world because, without it, the stars and galaxies around us, and even the Earth we stand on would probably never have formed, and yet its existence has only been shown indirectly. Our challenge to the designers was to illustrate Dark Matter in an innovative way that would reach an entirely new audience at the Chelsea Flower Show."

Chief designer, Architect Howard Miller said: “The Dark Matter Garden is an artistic interpretation of a scientific principle. Dark Matter can be detected by looking at the way it bends light rays, and the garden represents this with a giant lattice of steel rods, warped using a 3D modelling programme that has been made to simulate how dark matter bends light. The resulting curves and ‘diverted’ forms set up a whole design language for the rest of the garden. The garden is bookended at one end by a large circular opening, which symbolises the human view from telescopes on the ground into space and at the other by a huge light box representing the light from far distant galaxies. The challenge was that this was not just an artwork but also a scientifically sound diagram of the science. It was crucial that we worked closely with the astrophysicists at Liverpool John Moores University to get the interpretation spot on because the whole point of the garden is to get more people,particularly children, into science, by tapping into their innate fascination with space.”

STFC, as funders of Dark Matter research in the UK and at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, sponsored the exhibit for its original showcase at Chelsea through an STFC Public Engagement award, with support from Liverpool John Moores University.

For further information about STFC Daresbury laboratory’s public engagement programme visit: http://www.stfc.ac.uk/public-engagement/.

Images

• A time-lapse video of the garden being rebuilt is available
• Images of the National Schools’ Observatory Dark Matter Garden and opening event are available

Contact: 
Wendy Ellison
STFC Press Officer
Tel 01925 603232
Mob: 07919 548012
wendy.ellison@stfc.ac.uk

STFC

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is keeping the UK at the forefront of international science and tackling some of the most significant challenges facing society such as meeting our future energy needs, monitoring and understanding climate change, and global security.  The Council has a broad science portfolio and works with the academic and industrial communities to share its expertise in materials science, space and ground-based astronomy technologies, laser science, microelectronics, wafer scale manufacturing, particle and nuclear physics, alternative energy production, radio communications and radar.

STFC operates or hosts world class experimental facilities including in the UK the ISIS pulsed neutron source, the Central Laser Facility, and LOFAR, and is also the majority shareholder in Diamond Light Source Ltd. 

It enables UK researchers to access leading international science facilities by funding membership of international bodies including European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL), European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO).  STFC is one of seven publicly-funded research councils and is an independent, non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). 

Follow us on Twitter at @STFC_Matters. www.stfc.ac.uk