Research & reports

de Cárdenas Maestre I. · Cuaderno de Notas, no. 12, 119-134 · Germany

A Spanish-language study of Migge's 1919 'Green Manifesto', examining his utopian call for self-sufficiency and self-governance through small, interconnected rural-urban groups he termed Stadtland or Landstadt.

Cezary Kabała, T. Chodak, L. Szerszeń, Anna Karczewska, Katarzyna Szopka, Urszula Fratczak · Fresenius environmental bulletin · Poland (Wroclaw)

An analysis of 180 allotment garden soils in Wroclaw, Poland, found that concentrations of Cu, Pb, and Zn (12.5-659 mg Pb kg-1, 38.1-2103 mg Zn kg-1, 12.9-595 mg Cu kg-1) were influenced by industrial pollution sources, organic matter, pH, and macronutrients. Soils in gardens on former housing or industrial areas had significantly higher metal concentrations. Up to 35% of soils in the city zone were excessively contaminated, making them unsuitable for vegetable and fruit production and requiring reclamation.

Maria Gabriella Errico · · Europe

This study analyzed theories and concepts intertwining human activity with economic, social, scientific, and political aspects, driven by interest in solutions for maintaining agricultural landscapes in peri-urban areas. It investigated the landscape characteristics of territories between city and countryside that retain cultural historical signs. By synthesizing key challenges of peri-urban areas, the research aimed to identify design strategies for active conservation and transformation through agricultural park projects. The study proceeded to recognize the characteristics and critical issues of the peri-urban agricultural landscape.

· Engineering & Technology · United Kingdom (London)

This article describes the historical landscape of the 2012 London Olympic Park site, a 321-hectare brownfield in the Lea Valley. Archaeological findings by the Museum of London indicate human presence from the Mesolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman periods, with evidence of dwellings, skeletons, and a Roman coin. The site hosted textile printing in the 17th century, followed by petrol factories, bone, varnish, soap, and tallow works, distilleries, engineering, and chemical plants, and was used for landfill from the late 19th century. It also had strong electronic associations, with the development of the first diode valve in 1904 and the establishment of Britain's first radio valve factory in 1916 and first television tube factory in 1936.

Robert Rogerson, Sue Sadler · Strathprints: The University of Strathclyde institutional repository (University of Strathclyde) · United Kingdom

This case study, prepared by BRASS (Centre for Business Relationships Accountability, Sustainability & Society), is part of an HCA/ESRC funded research project. The project investigated skills and knowledge applied in sustainability initiatives related to housing, land, food, and transport.

Hubert Więckowski · Jagiellonian University Repository (Jagiellonian University) · Germany (Berlin)

This article describes the 8th edition of the Synaxis Baltica Summer Academy, organized in Potsdam and Berlin, Germany. It presents the significant aims of the Synaxis Baltica Summer Academy, established in 2002, and briefly describes the main topics of the 8th academy, which included community gardens and guerilla gardening. Information about lectures, experts, and participants' tasks and obligations is also provided.

AÇIKSÖZ Sebahat · Tarım Bilimleri Dergisi · Turkey (Bartın)

This study investigated whether urban agriculture activities in Bartın, Turkey, could be organized as a cluster according to Cluster Growth Theory, and examined its cluster characteristics as part of the TR-26 Bartın Regional Development Project. While urban agriculture in Bartın was identified as having cluster characteristics and growth potential, the study found that a fundamental problem for its future development is weak coordination and cooperation among stakeholders. It proposes a model for urban agriculture activities for a "Bartın Urban Initiative" at the city level.

C. Liesegang · · Europe

An empirical, cross-context study of community engagement in public urban space examined community garden projects in Berlin, Germany, and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as case studies. These projects — which typically upgrade empty, abandoned land into public or semi-public urban space and community access to nature — were studied to understand why people get involved in collective projects in public space, focusing on social and place-bound processes, with a central research question of which social processes and project features lead organizers, participants, and neighbors to understand community gardens as fostering place-making and social connectedness. The two case studies were selected as legally or formally recognized grassroots, self-organized initiatives combining individual and mainly collective gardening activities with semi-public or public access, and were analyzed for place characteristics, social and organizational features, partnerships with public institutions, degree of public accessibility, and collective versus individual gardening.

E. Peduto, D. Satdinova · · United Kingdom

The available abstract is fragmentary and cuts off mid-sentence, but it states that some areas of London have already advanced considerably under the "Capital Growth" initiative launched in November 2008. That initiative is described as aiming to turn 2,012 pieces of land into green spaces for growing food, though the abstract breaks off before providing further study details or findings.

Laura Terragni, Hanne Torjusen, Gunnar Vittersø · Anthropology of food · Europe

Drawing on studies conducted over the past 15 years at the Norwegian National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO), this article analyzes alternative food consumption in Norway centered on organic food. Tracing the organic movement from its origins, it shows organic products have gained a notable position within the conventional market even as they face conventionalization, while other alternative initiatives are emerging, including fair trade, farmers' markets, farm food outlets, box schemes, and community supported agriculture (CSA). It argues the consumer's role must be understood contextually, and that products consumers identify as "alternative" are those that, in a given time and place, are socially constructed to best reflect alternative values.

Rosie Cox, Lewis Holloway, Laura Venn, Liz Dowler, Jane Ricketts Hein, Moya Kneafsey, Helena Tuomainen · Local Environment · United Kingdom

This paper examines the motivations of producers and consumers participating in a community-supported agriculture (CSA) project in Scotland. It reveals the diverse motivations and philosophies consumers bring to the scheme, contrasting them with the organizers' stated aims. The study argues that effective communication within direct marketing schemes is important for fostering long-term commitment between producers and consumers, and for encouraging consumers to consider broader behavioral changes.

Zoia Komirenko, D.M. Hoermann, Komirenko, Z., Hoermann, D.M. · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Ukraine (Kyiv)

This study surveyed 240 Kyiv households with urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in 2005 using a standardized questionnaire. Data collected covered production, inputs, sales, and the importance of plots for self-sufficiency, recreation, and leisure. Cluster analysis identified four groups of UPA users, revealing that the importance of UPA shifts from livelihood necessity to recreational resource, or combines both, depending on the plot type.

Melanie Dana Nakaue · The Brock Review · Europe

This article investigates the use and representation of the garden in contemporary art by applying Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia. Stan Douglas reconstructs early 19th-century Northern European community gardens in his work "Der Sandman," while Hew Locke recontextualizes the garden as a site of postcolonial experience with his assemblage topiary sculpture "Black Queen." Through this analysis, the article aims to illuminate the connection between site and subjectivity and the multiplicity of meaning resulting from the garden as a quintessential site of postmodern experience.

Haney D. H. · Landscape Journal, 26(2), 201-218 · Germany

Analyzes Migge's 1919 'Green Manifesto', one of the most overtly political tracts by a landscape architect, proposing that intensive vegetable gardens for everyone could solve Germany's social and economic problems through a technologically modern synthesis of garden and dwelling.

Nadine Holdsworth · Research in Drama Education The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance · United Kingdom

This article examines Joan Littlewood's cultural innovations beyond traditional theatre, focusing on her local projects in the 1960s that promoted cultural democracy and active citizenship. During redevelopment around Theatre Royal, Stratford East, Littlewood transformed discarded spaces into temporary structures, playgrounds, mini inner-city farms, and planting schemes. These activities emphasized children's access to cultural activity, social encounter, and creative play, and explored their interaction in the public realm and responsibility for animating spaces.

Mark Stenton · Archaeology Data Service · United Kingdom (Sheffield)

A desk-based assessment of land at Garden Street and Broad Lane, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, conducted in July 2007, involved a site visit and documentary research. The site, undeveloped prior to 1736, contained allotment gardens by 1779 and was developed with housing, retail, and industrial premises by the mid-19th century. These 19th-century structures were demolished in 1935 and replaced by current buildings. The assessment notes uncertainty regarding the presence of cellarage in earlier buildings and the impact of 20th-century construction on potential sub-surface archaeological deposits.

Mark Stenton · Archaeology Data Service · United Kingdom (Sheffield)

This desk-based archaeological assessment of Hanover Works in Sheffield, UK, conducted in July 2007, involved a site visit and documentary research. The area was likely agricultural in the medieval period, becoming small plots by the early 17th century, and developed industrially from the early 19th century. The assessment suggests that 19th-century subsurface archaeological features may remain beneath present-day structures, though their condition is undetermined.

Mark Stenton · Archaeology Data Service · United Kingdom (South Yorkshire)

In October 2007, ARCUS conducted a desk-based assessment of land at Bankwood Lane, New Rossington, South Yorkshire (SK 60828 98613), which included a site visit, documentary, and cartographic research. The site is located in an area of key significance for the Iron Age and Romano-British periods and was parkland or pasture within the Rossington Hall estate between approximately 1220 and 1938. Substantial ground disturbance was unlikely during this period or subsequent post-war development, as the site contained allotment gardens and a factory unit without basement levels.

A.J. Visser, J.E. Jansma, A.J.G. Dekking, M.J.M. Klieverik · Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling · Europe (Netherlands)

A guide compiling the experiences, learning moments, and tips of those involved in urban agriculture initiatives in the Netherlands, along with an indication of what is needed to further develop urban agriculture in the country.

Arjan van Timmeren, Daniel Sidler, Marleen Kaptein · Journal of Green Building · Europe

This paper is a case study of the integration of a combined wastewater/energy system into a semi-public building, the EVA Centre, within EVA Lanxmeer, a "deep green" district in Culemborg, the Netherlands, consisting of 250 houses, offices, and a City farm. The district lies in an ecologically sensitive drinking-water extraction and retention area, and the approach centres on closing nutrient, water, and carbon cycles and integrating energy generation with waste management using the concept of exergy. The core system is based on anaerobic digestion (treating black wastewater and garden/park waste) combined with Combined Heat and Power generation, alongside a four-storey double-skin-façade closed greenhouse with vertical "hanging gardens" that incorporates wastewater treatment based on the Living Machine concept for educational purposes, recovering surplus CO2 from the biogas plant and storing heat/cold in an underlying aquifer. This "Sustainable Implant" concept is described as connecting the residential district and the EVA Centre, and its inhabitants and visitors.

Peter Groenewegen, A.E. van den Berg, S. de Vries, Robert Verheij · BMC Public Health · Netherlands

This article discusses the design of a research program in the Netherlands on the effects of green space in the living environment on health, well-being, and social safety. The program consists of three observational studies at different scales: macro (national data), intermediate (urban green space effects), and micro (allotment gardens). It combines existing land use and health interview survey data with new data collected via questionnaires and interviews, to be analyzed using multilevel analysis and GIS techniques.

Paul Gough · International Journal of Heritage Studies · United Kingdom (London)

This paper examines in detail two community gardens in central London. These gardens owe their origins to radical local agendas set within the political climate of the Cold War of the 1980s and grand visions for world peace. Twenty years after their creation, the author explores their current condition and examines their value as sites of political value and heritage.

Paola Branduini · Virtual Community of Pathological Anatomy (University of Castilla La Mancha) · Italy

Projects for the valorization of agriculture in Italian metropolitan areas have primarily originated from initiatives within peri-urban parks. The second national Conference on Protected Areas in 2002 confirmed the idea that peri-urban agricultural areas can bridge rural and urban cultures through new management models. Italy presents several plans already realized or in progress that are significant for their concept of peri-urban agriculture, ongoing actions, and the role played by stakeholders.

Kim Geun Ho, Tongbuhm Cho, 김미향 · Journal of the Korean housing association · Europe

Seven eco-villages in Germany, Denmark, and the UK were selected for field surveys of settlement background, social and economic aspects, architectural specifications, recycled energy, and landscape characteristics of external spaces, analyzing the landscape characteristics of community gardens and common spaces and the ecological symbolism of landscapes created by residents. The eco-village landscapes were found to intend neither a return to primitive society nor control of nature through technology but rather coexistence with nature, with primitive nature symbolically restored and residents who share this outlook intending to cultivate this common sense together, landscape creation playing an important role in establishing a shared relationship between human living and nature.

김근호, 조동범, 김미향 · · Europe

A field survey of seven eco-villages in Germany, Denmark, and the UK examined each settlement's background, social and economic aspects, architectural specifications, recycled energy use, and the landscape characteristics of external spaces, analyzing the ecological symbolism of the landscapes residents created. It concluded that eco-village landscapes were oriented neither toward returning to primitive society nor toward controlling nature through technology, but toward coexistence with nature, with primitive nature symbolically restored and community garden landscape design expressing a meaningful relationship between human life and nature.