Projects

Beyond a Construction Site

18.10.2022

Community garden on a dormant construction site (Ljubljana, 2010–2022)

In collaboration with local residents and other interested people, we transformed a long fenced-off plot of municipal land near Resljeva Street in Ljubljana into a community space intended for gardening, socializing, play, education, and culture. Here we were examining and demonstrating the potential of abandoned urban areas and the possibility of their acquiring new value through temporary use and community-based actions. The project both enhanced and communicated possibilities for urban gardening and publicly accessible green areas in the city, as well as the more active inclusion of inhabitants in decision making regarding the planning, development, and management of city spaces.

Over the 12 years of the project, more than 200 participants gardened and cared for the common space at Beyond a Construction Site, we organized and hosted numerous public events and programs, and the community garden was also open to the public through weekly “open hours”.

We began the project in August 2010 as part of the Young Lions cultural festival organized by the Bunker Institute. The City of Ljubljana supported the project with a contract for the free-of-charge, temporary use of the land, which had to be renewed on a yearly basis.

In spring 2021, the municipality informed us that this would be the last season of the project. In June 2021, as part of the submission of comments on the new draft of the municipal spatial plan, we urged the municipality to keep the ownership of the land and preserve the site as a public green area. Over the years many trees had self-propagated and grown on the site, which became an important green island in a neighborhood that otherwise lacks green spaces. Our proposal also included an alternative option: if the municipality would not allow a public park on the site, it should ensure the construction of public non-profit apartments. The municipality rejected the proposal for a public park on the grounds that it is not in line with the city’s sustainable development strategy, which includes the densification of buildings in buildable areas that are already equipped with the necessary infrastructure. Currently, the city’s Public Housing Fund is preparing a project for the construction of 33 non-profit apartments and one unit for the elderly at this location.

The project concluded in October 2022. As part of our farewell action, we dug up the plants that had been growing in the community garden and distributed them among the participants and other interested people. Moreover, with the help of experts we transplanted nine trees to the green area along Linhartova Street in Ljubljana and to the garden of the public kindergarten in Sneberje, as all the trees on the site will be cut down during the upcoming construction work.

This unique spatial, ecological, and community project is documented in the book Onkraj vrtičkov: skupnostni vrt Onkraj gradbišča (in Slovene).


Project’s website: https://onkrajgradbisca.wordpress.com/
Video reportage about the project's beginning (author: Gregor Gobec, production: Bunker, 2011)
Initiator: Obrat Culture and Art Association (Stefan Doepner, Urška Jurman, Polonca Lovšin, Apolonija Šušteršič) in collaboration with Nina Vidič Ivančič (2011/12)
Location: The fenced-off construction site, Resljeva Street, Ljubljana
Plot owner: The Municipality of Ljubljana
Duration: 2010–2022
Co-producers: Obrat Association, Bunker Institute (2010/11)
Support: numerous volunteers, Bunker Institute/Interreg Euro-MED – European Regional Development Fund, Municipality of Ljubljana, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Republic of Slovenia Public Fund for Cultural Activities, Semenarna Ljubljana, JP Voka Snaga, Mreža za prostor/ECO Fund and Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning
Photographs: KUD Obrat members, Gregor Gobec, Suzana Kajba, Drago Kos, Tomaž Tomažin, Nina Vastl, Nada Žgank