CHAPTER 3 - CASE STUDIES ON GROUND

CHAPTER 3

CASE STUDIES - GARDENS ON GROUND

This chapter will look into community gardens as imperative vernacular assets for its users with two case studies centred in the London Borough of Hackney. As well as the housing affordability crisis in London, Hackney is one of many boroughs experiencing an exponential population increase as the borough becomes an increasingly popular inhabitation option, with 75% of the inhabitants living in flats but few have access to their own green space56, and therefore rely on community gardens as a retreat. Since existing brownfield sites for housing development are scarce, the council are targeting at least two dozen community gardens for the so-called ‘housing supply programme’. We start off with the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden in Dalston and Daubeney Community Garden

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in Clapton. Both are two of many community gardens in coalition to protest as Hackney Council are pressured to sell off buildings and land, taking away their vital green spaces to meet the demand for more housing. In the final case study, we juxtapose to a dystopian but now reformed garden in the borough of Lambeth to explore the Edible Bus Stop garden in Brixton.

DALSTON AREA ACTION PLAN DISCUSSION

I attended the Hackney Council ‘Dalston Area Action Plan’ meeting on 15th Feb 2020 which was held in a well-lit greenhouse within the Dalston community garden; a protective area aimed to safely express our opinions and concerns regarding the new proposals that the council were proposing. Through discussing with members of the council and town planners, council member Conor Keappock explained to me that ‘green space and open space’ are the main concerns in Hackney. Therefore, the interest in the different types of green spaces the borough became an anchor point and hence the idea of community gardens was explored. True for the case studies analysed in this section, Stavrides argues that as people collectively produce commons, they create themselves57 and also a collective identity. Most importantly, how the gardens have impacted the users to a great extent as a result of demolishment, but how the community are campaigning to keep the gardens running for the benefit of the commoners.

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