Belfast Community Plant Library
We are super excited to work on an exciting collaborative project Belfast Community Plant Library with Belfast Design Week
On the run up to the first Belfast Community Plant Library event at Culture Night 2026 we gathered stories about local people and their experiences with plants.
Please have a look at The Belfast Plant Stories page to see what some of the people of Belfast have said about their experiences with plants and how they connect with their lives.
Read Belfast Plant Stories
How the idea came about
The Belfast Community Plant Library is a collaborative initiative between ourselves Blick Shared Studios, Belfast Design Week and One Bite Design Studio (Hong Kong, Singapore and London). The project was inspired by an impromptu meeting between the organisations in Hong Kong in 2024, where they discovered a shared set of values and a common vision for creating meaningful, plant-centred community spaces.
Grow Your Own Way
At the time, Blick Shared Studios and Belfast Design Week had recently completed Grow Your Own Way, a project that brought designers and gardeners together to explore how residents in Belfast’s Botanic and Holylands areas could be supported to grow their own food within the city. The project opened up a wider question: how might design help bring the benefits of nature closer to people living, working, studying and visiting Belfast?
Hong Kong 2024
The answer began to take shape during a trip to Hong Kong. While working on a design installation for the British Council’s Spark Festival 2024, we visited Alan from One Bite Design at his studio. Outside, on the street, we saw the Hong Kong Community Plant Library and loved the concept. It was an accessible, welcoming intervention that used plants to create new opportunities for interaction in the city.
We left the meeting inspired not only by the plant library itself, but by the possibilities it represented: a relatively simple design intervention capable of making a city greener, encouraging people to explore their neighbourhoods and creating unexpected points of connection. What began as an informal meeting became the starting point for a longer-term collaboration. The trip also left us inspired about the potential of working on more interactive design led activities for cultural events. Working on the installation showed us how design can transform cultural events from passive viewing events into active, community-driven experiences to deepen audience engagement.
2025 One Bite Visit To Belfast
In 2025, One Bite’s Alan and business partner Sarah visited Belfast to see around the city and visit some of the design led green projects including 9ft in Common and Brink! A Growing Story as well as a tour of the Linen Quarter. Exploring the similarities and differences between our cities and starting to thin about how we might work together in the future.
2025 Islands of Design Collaboration
We then went on to collaborate on the Islands of Design Talks and Workshop for Irish Design Week 2025, further developing our shared interests in design, community and place.
Belfast Community Plant Library at Culture Night
On Friday 18th September we had the best time hosting Belfast Community Plant Library at Bankmore Square for Culture Night 2026
Belfast Community Plant Library was a collaborative project all about connecting people, place, plants and creativity and had lots of parts including:
- Plant Furniture Installation created by David Keys Sustainable Woodworking and the Green: Remake Group
- Plant Clinic with Jilly Dougan
- Co-design workshop, Zine and Flax Seed Kits with One Bite Design
- Exhibition and origami plant pot making with our Design Hothouse Residents Rachel Cowie and Beth Schmidt
- Belfast Plant Map of plants found growing naturally in Belfast and places to pause in Belfast City Centre curated by us and illustrated by Thomas Bannon
- Leaf rubbing and interactive posters
Event funded by Belfast City Council and venue provided by Linen Quarter Bid
Photos kindly taken by Dave Schmidt
A map of plants found growing naturally in Belfast and places to pause that have a little bit of nature (but mostly not enough) in Belfast City Centre curated by us and illustrated by Thomas Bannon
Plants In The Belfast Plant Map
We are definitely not plant experts but as part of this project which is all about Belfast and plants we wanted to look into some of the plants that you see growing naturally in Belfast (usually growing as weeds along the edge of streets, in car parks and fenced off areas). To explore the value they have the potential to offer, both culturally through the folklore and history and heritage of Northern Ireland as well as their benefits to biodiversity, the climate and insects and as potential foodsources (if pollution wasn’t an issue). These are all plants we found within a 10 minute walk of our Hill St studios in Belfast City Centre and a few interesting facts and stories we found about them beautifully illustrated by Thomas Bannon.
PDF Resources You can Download
Here you can find different resources created for the project
The Giant Plant Zine
PDF: 77.50 MB
What's Coming Next for Belfast Community Plant Library?
Keep an eye on our website and social media to see where Belfast Community Plant Library pops up next!
