David Elliott: London theatre built entirely from recycled material

They make a living treading them but, for a limited time this summer, a group of eco-conscious London thespians will be entertaining crowds on boards made from different kind of wood – fruit and veg pallets.

The Jellyfish theatre, located in a public playground a hop, skip and jump from Shakespeare’s Globe in inner-city London Bridge, is a new venue made entirely from recycled and reclaimed materials, including wooden pallets more used to a life lugging fruit and veg around Covent Garden market and piles of disused water cooler bottles.

Called The Oikos Project, the idea is a collaboration between theatre group The Red Room and charity The Architecture Foundation, who have commissioned German architect Martin Kaltwasser to build what will be Britain’s first fully functioning theatre made entirely from junk.

A temporary structure, which will comply with local building and safety regulations, it is being constructed from a steel frame and materials salvaged from a range of sources, including old theatre sets, building site material and other ‘rubbish’ brought along by the public. The building will also feature a wall constructed from disused water cooler bottles that have been decorated by local schools.

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When completed, the theatre will host tours and exhibitions before opening as a 100-seat venue between 26 August and 9 October. It will then be dismantled. Two UK playwrights, Kay Adshead and Simon Wu, have written green-themed plays especially for the project, focusing on characters attempting to cope with environmental disasters.

In a throwaway society that needs to drive the reuse and recycling message, this project is a symbol of what can be achieved. But it is also much more than that. Oikos says the build is focused on “energy-efficiency, co-operation and human-scale construction”, and it has called on carpenters, builders, craftspeople and “unskilled hands” to pitch in and offer their time to help with the build.

What’s more, there are free tickets to the performances for local residents. So it’s a community project built by local people to benefit local people – bypassing the boardroom and building, ahem, a board room. Let’s hope the message gets through and we start to see many more examples of how what could have gone to waste can be effectively reused.

For more information on the project and a larger gallery of pictures of the build, visit The Oikos Project website.

David Elliott is production editor of Packaging News.

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