Creative Gardening in Urban Spaces

A recent post by designboom features a design for a community garden in a vertical spiral. From designers Benet and Saida dalmau, Anna Julibert and Carmen Vilar:

We wanted to build a new environmentally-friendly town where the environment is considered as an important part of everyday life. We propose ‘spiral garden system’: a public sustainable place like a green heart, easy to maintain and self-sufficient, created by a joint population that will stimulate social interaction among neighbours. A light, spiral structure protected by a transparent and suggestive mesh, the project encourages the city to create sustainable exchange spaces in different ways. This spiral contains an ascending garden where native vegetation can coexist with urban orchards, shared and planted for the neighbours for easy maintenance and serving also as a green outdoor walk. ‘Spiral garden system’ increases social interaction between people, provides a place for exchanging natural products, and becomes a way for local residents to get involved with their neighbourhood. to sum up, we propose an ecological project in a way to give sustainable change to daily city lives, where humans and nature can coexist.

They describe their garden concept using the same language we often use to describe traditional community gardens: a shared space for neighbors to connect, a green sanctuary in the city, and a source of fresh, healthy produce. To create a successful community garden, you don’t need much more than a little space and a lot of care from the neighborhood. Even so, we’re excited to see these creative takes on on urban gardening. Take a look:

Spiral garden system in a park. Spiral garden interior.For more renderings, see the full post at designboom.com.

And in case you missed it, check out last week’s post on Berlin’s portable community garden.