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about inteGration

What does the inteGration of aLLotment and community Gardens mean?

Why

The Integration of allotment and community gardens project covers a range of practices that have evolved formally or informally in Warsaw and Berlin as well as in some other cities. They aim to implement new ways of resource sharing and cooperation between people and communities for strengthening the gardens’ resilience. Such practices are gaining importance in the context of increasing pressure on land in the cities.

aim

Allotment and community gardens are often considered as different worlds. However, they share many similarities. The Integration of allotment and community gardens project shows the closeness between these two worlds and all others that evolve around urban gardening, highlighting the powerful synergy that their potential union can create.

This guide demonstrates ways that enable gardeners to stabilise and enhance their role in the city, it encourages new forms of co-operation between different state and non-state actors, and it fosters new models of sustainable land use. Both kinds of garden draw benefits through mutual learning; the sharing of knowledge, experience and resources; as well as the strengthening of their role in the urban arena – a condition that can ensure their recognition within urban landscape management plans. In the process of integration, urban gardens become more accessible for wider constituencies, thus ensuring environmental, spatial and social justice. They can become multifunctional spaces responding to the needs of different communities.

diverse Ways of inteGration

The Integration of allotment and community gardens can be practised in many ways and involves both mental and physical proximity. The urban gardener is the protagonist of integration by performing different actions that can vary in character and scale, the type of actors involved, time perspectives, and topics.

These initiatives range from a one-off joint event organised together by allotment and community gardens, to building a strong network of urban gardens in the city; from getting a group to enter the otherwise closed gates of a colony, to making colonies permanently open for hosting community activities within it; or organising joint activities, such as workshops on composting, which can result in long-term collaboration between gardens.

For the purposes of this guide, these practices have been classified into three types of action in which integration is presented gradually, as a long-term process carried out step-by-step.

1. Co-operAtion AnD DiAlogue Among gArDeners 2. the opening oF Allotment gArDens 3. the Common use oF A plot in An Allotment gArDen

The result of such integration would be the creation of a new model of urban garden, thus reaching people of different ages, genders, educational levels and social backgrounds, as well as highlighting important social functions by showing their impact on the improvement of the quality of life in the city. To ensure these qualities, the spatial outcome will result in accessible, welcoming, and multifunctional urban gardens.