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AaaM ARCHITECTS

The Xmas’ TREe Nursery took a socially-engaging approach to convey an environmental message through a temporary installation. In lieu of gigantic installations common in Hong Kong in the Xmas’ season, 36 Xmas’ trees of humane scale made up by 16,000 recycled paper drink cartons, with the participation of over 1600 primary students and thousands of public, formed a Xmas’ tree nursery. Re-conceptualizing from festive consumerism icon back to one of sharing and respect for the environment, the Xmas’ trees planted lasting environmental awareness and initiate recycling habit in modern city living.

Radical Transformation of 16,000 Recycled Drink Cartons

to Christmas Tree Nursery

How to convey an environmental message as well as achieve place-making effect through a temporary Christmas installation?

A radical and socially-engaging approach was taken to tackle the problem. In contrary to making gigantic installations commonly seen in the malls of the highly commercialized city of Hong Kong during the festive Christmas season, we conceived 36 Christmas trees of humanely engaging scale, made up by a total of 16,000 recycled paper drink cartons, to form a Christmas tree nursery. The firm wished to make use of the installations’ temporality to plant lasting environmental awareness and initiate recycling habit in modern city living. 

Largely made from trees to paper and added with plastic and aluminum, the paper drink cartons were flattened, folded and reborn as a Christmas tree, re-conceptualizing this symbol of modern festive consumerism back to one of gathering, sharing and respect for the environment. The reality and necessity for public participation in order to bring true changes and awareness laid the root for the concept of a nursery forest, where it was spatialized for social interactions and engaging experience to take place. We rethought the temporary installations not as a decorative end product, but as a catalytic instrument in both material and ideological terms among the waste recycling process and its education to achieve true sustainability.

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