➔ Urban Gardens Integration

Research project Integration of allotment and community gardens in Warsaw and Berlin carried out in 2019-2021 in Berlin and Warsaw.

The aim of the project is to contribute to the sustainable development of allotment and community gardens in Poland and Germany. Our intention was to examine both forms of urban gardening and the process of transforming them into open spaces, available for residents and meeting needs of different local groups.

Based on our surveys conducted between 2019-2021 in Warsaw and Berlin, we sought to systematize the complex facets of integration processes in three different forms of integration that contribute to the transition of allotment gardens to open and inclusive structures by means of their protection. These are understood as practices performed by gardeners, which gradually result in the production of new multifunctional urban landscapes.

The result of the first phase of the project is a Guide To Fostering Cooperation for Integrated Forms Of Urban Gardening aimed at practitioners, activists, gardeners, representatives of urban institutions, available in Polish, German and English.

The research has been conducted using participatory action research, which assumes close cooperation of researchers with gardeners and people living in the vicinity of the gardens. Our aim was to initiate cooperation between garden representatives, moderating focus groups and workshops. An important part of the project was the exchange of experience between gardeners from Germany and Poland.

The final result of the project is the article Towards an integrated garden. Gardeners of all types, unite! published in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening in March 2023.

The project was coordinated by Humboldt University of Berlin and University of Łódź thanks to support from Polish-German Foundation for Science (PNFN).
Field research supervisors: Anna Dańkowska (coordination), Agnieszka Dragon (coordination), Elena Ferrari
Project supervisors: Dagmar Haase (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), Jakub Kronenberg (University of Łódź), Annegret Haase (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ)

Project's website: https://www.integrationgardens.com/