Hulme Community Garden Centre is a unique community led inner-city horticultural project. We are a not-for-profit organisation and our mission is to bring the community together through gardening. As a social enterprise we are a fully stocked garden centre and nursery retailing to everyone from amateur gardeners to allotmenteers, landscape gardeners to City Councils but we are equally a volunteer, education and training hub working with socially excluded people across Greater Manchester. We grow using organic methods, are underpinned by principles of sustainability and seek to build social capital in a greener city while promoting health and well-being. Established in 2000 we now welcome over 15000 visitors per year.
The garden centre sales area is a crucial aspect of the site and its success, with profit from the sale of plants going back in to the community garden and nursery. With the site expanding onto the neighbouring car park, there is an exciting opportunity to develop the sales area through the design and construction of a permanent but dynamic installation that reflects the qualities and principles of the centre whilst enhancing the aesthetic and potential of the sales site. The design must embody the ethos of the community garden centre, encompassing all aspects of sustainability, from responsibly sourced materials and minimal costs to improving the local biodiversity and acting as a means of education for visitors to the centre, becoming in all aspects an exercise in sustainable design and build.
