The phenomenon of shrinking cities worldwide has generated many derelict voids. If left to fall into neglectfulness and urban inertia, these spaces will have a detrimental effect on local neighbourhoods regarding environmental quality, social health and local economies. Collective allotment gardens in Glasgow provide places to play and to learn about nature and technologies as well as to do something useful for your personal development and people encounters and affordable techniques for gardening, food production and harvesting in cities.
The recent implementation of MOBILELAND garden at Gorbals offers a variety of opportunities to deliver locally social, environmental and economic benefits. MOBILELAND garden performs as a catalyst for community actions; produces an improvement in the aesthetics and rebrands stigmatised residential areas; contributes to the green infrastructure of the city; and generates safe public places for local dwellers.
This summer a pioneering landscape recovery initiative called ‘YELLOWFIELD’ at MOBILELAND garden has recently been established to reactivate the existing greenfield with 50 sunflower planters and phytoremediation soil treatment enabling physical and biological recuperation through temporary uses of vacant plots and community led place-‐making. In synchronicity with Green Glasgow 2015 and Glasgow City Council, YELLOWFIELD also intends to create environmental awareness and debate on smart, green and sustainable ideas locally through the transformation of a brownfield site into an open public garden and ecologically productive land. This bottom-up intervention aims to reanimate alternative brownfield sites: from Brown to Green. Dr Cristian Suau (Architecture) and Dr Christine Switzer (Civil & Environmental Engineering) and Amanda Currie (external landscape artist & gardener) are actively collaborating in this project.
MOBILELAND https://mobilelandglasgow.wordpress.com is the first Stalled Spaces award held by the University of Strathclyde and supported by the Glasgow City Council. It represents a unique Knowledge Exchange and educational initiative led by Dr. Cristian Suau since October 2014. This initiative is the core project of the Glasgow Project Office in collaboration with the VIP and MUSE educational programmes. Internationally MOBILELAND© has debuted in the Glasgow Pecha Kucha Show and The Month of Design in Ljubljana (2014) and recently joined the COST Action TU1201 Network ‘Urban Allotment Gardens in European Cities’ (2015).
Dr. Cristian Suau
Coordinator MOBILELAND garden