study in practice

Landscape architecture projects can vary from small-scale house gardens to undertakings complementing regional and urban planning. From the private property of a single family to the most crucial public spaces in the city, landscape architecture is about shaping, upgrading or restoring the quality of the space around us. The traditional view of the profession as showcased in various ‘best practice’ albums and exhibitions is usually limited to the aesthetics of prosperity, and often luxury.

Temporary uses have become an established tool in European cities for reactivating vacant sites and supply financially weak users with space. But what is often represented as a win-win situation for users, owners and the authorities is also characterised by precarious conditions for the users. They need to take the interests of different stakeholders into account and are forced to adapt structural givens with low-budget investments. To deal with this, they rely on alternative practices like sharing, do-it-yourself, collective self-organisation, try-outs, recycling and flexible operation.

The sound of a megaphone shrills through a typical cold and drizzling Berlin December night. Some passers-by yell at us in anger as others silently wipe tears off their cheeks. ‘It’s the first time in my career as an artist that somebody is booing me’, says a voice next to me. We stop painting for a moment to watch the small crowd that has gathered on the other side of the fence, about 25 meters beneath our lifting platform.

The co-produced city