Co-Creating community gardens on untapped terrain – lessons from a transdisciplinary planning and participation process in the context of municipal housing in Vienna

ABSTRACT

Urban gardening in Vienna, Austria, has gained a new significance over the last ten years. However, although demand is constantly rising and urban gardening is being marketed in many ways, a vast majority of the urban population still has no access to gardening and its various benefits. While community gardening projects in Europe are usually viewed as temporary, self-organised bottom-up initiatives on public or abandoned private land, this case study of the Roda-Roda pilot project shows that community gardening can develop and persist even when favourable conditions for grassroots community gardens are lacking. The vast green spaces separating residential blocks (Abstandsgrün) commonly found in Vienna’s municipal housing (Wiener Gemeindebau) have a huge spatial potential for gardening, along with a forgotten tradition of self-organisation. Using an action research approach, this paper describes two principles for a successful implementation strategy under difficult conditions. Starting with a top-down approach, an interdisciplinary project team implemented a spatial and socio-economic framework that offered a stable basis for participatory community-building. As they “climbed” the ladder of participation stepwise – from exclusion to decision-making and true self-organisation – gardeners gained knowledge, skills and the self-confidence required to run a garden and create a well-working local community. At a more general level, the paper brings a co-creative planning perspective to the scientific discussion on community gardening in Europe and offers a practical approach to making local gardening opportunities available to suitable target groups by tapping into unused spatial potential.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban gardening
• social housing
• pilot project
• ladder of participation
• open space planning

Acknowledgements

This article is based on original fieldwork, which was conducted by Heide Studer, Susanne Staller, Sonja Gruber, Kirsten Förster, and Rita Mayrhofer during a pilot project funded by Wiener Wohnen and Wiener Magistratsabteilung 57- Women’s Affairs from 2009 to 2011 and, additionally, the evaluation with Christoph Stoik and Julia Emprechtinger in 2010, funded by Wiener Magistratsabteilung 50 - Wohnbauforschung. I wish to thank all my colleagues for their support, Heide Studer and Marlene Mellauner for very useful comments on earlier drafts of this article and Michael Ornetzeder for his perserving advice and excellent feedback. I gratefully acknowledge the members of the Roda-Roda Garden community for everything I learned through our collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 There have been four earlier attempts to create a community garden in Wiener Gemeindebau, three of which were based on the efforts of a single person and one was operated by several people for thirteen years. All projects have been abandoned.

2 The project was funded by Wiener Wohnen and MA 57, and carried out by Heide Studer, Susanne Staller, Sonja Gruber, Kirsten Förster, Rita Mayrhofer (association WIRBEL). The evaluation was funded by Wiener Wohnbauforschung MA 50 and carried out by WIRBEL and the scientific research centre KOSAR (Christoph Stoik, Julia Emprechtinger) http://www.wohnbauforschung.at/index.php?id=338.