→The Project: Green Neighbourhood Garage

Initiative for a greener city via neighbourhood activities (Vienna)

This project is based on the the­o­ry that com­pre­hen­sive green­ing of a city is only pos­si­ble in com­bi­na­tion with a strong civic engage­ment. In order to fos­ter this, neigh­bor­hood ini­tia­tives have to be dis­con­nect­ed from the hon­orary office and their poten­tial must be fos­tered. Fur­ther­more, a form of interor­gan­i­sa­tion­al coop­er­a­tion between the munic­i­pal­i­ties and their strate­gic cli­mate goals and the ini­tia­tives has to hap­pen – which we will be ini­ti­at­ing. 

How can we best start such a project, using which approach­es and mod­els? What orga­ni­za­tion­al form do we need in order to best con­cil­i­ate the dif­fer­ent action lev­els? How can we best use this to sup­port the strate­gic goals of the city to adapt to cli­mate change?

In prac­tice, this project finds its start in the green­ing of a vacant garage build­ing in Ottakring in Vien­na. The project site allows for a sim­ple real­iza­tion of green­ing forms on the out­side area (such as non-floor-bound green facades) as well as the inte­ri­or space (indoor-raised-bed-gar­den­ing). The Green Neigh­bor­hood Garage not only address­es neigh­bor­hood ini­tia­tives, but also every­one liv­ing in Vien­na. As a project with a strong social aspect, it has the poten­tial to bring togeth­er dif­fer­ent peo­ple and to encour­age com­mu­ni­ty. 

Fur­ther­more, actors such as polit­i­cal stake­hold­ers, admin­is­tra­tions and indus­try are prof­it­ing from the ini­tia­tive. Here, adap­tion mea­sures to cli­mate change in the urban area can be devel­oped, insights on cit­i­zen engage­ment con­nect­ed to com­pre­hen­sive green­ing mea­sures can be won, an inter­me­di­ary orga­ni­za­tion between the city of Vien­na and the neigh­bor­hood ini­tia­tives can be out­lined and busi­ness mod­els with aspects of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and social entre­pre­neur­ship can be devel­oped.  It is our goal to cre­ate a mod­el for the city of Vien­na that sub­se­quent­ly can be scaled to oth­er cities for the inte­gra­tion of the pop­u­la­tion in urban devel­op­ment. Only like this we can cre­ate effec­tive and notice­able change. 

As an inno­v­a­tive and neigh­bour­hood-pro­mot­ing project, we have applied for the grant “Soziale Inno­va­tion” by the city of Vien­na. Lets recre­ate urban green­ing together!

The Questions:

In the con­text of this project some impor­tant ques­tions appear, that will be revised in the course of the congress:

• What form of orga­ni­za­tion is ide­al for cre­at­ing a num­ber of neigh­bor­hood ini­tia­tives and at the same time con­nect them to the strate­gic goals of the city of Vienna?
• What spe­cial legal, tech­ni­cal and social sup­port will the neigh­bor­hood ini­tia­tives need? What spe­cial require­ments are there, specif­i­cal­ly in the ini­tial phase? 
• What type of busi­ness mod­el (e.g. Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture, Crowd ini­tia­tives, etc.) exist for spe­cif­ic green­ing initiatives?
• How can such a project be rescaled for a whole city? How can it be imple­ment­ed in dif­fer­ent cities?
• How can we most effec­tive­ly achieve com­pre­hen­sive green­ing with the help of a strong civic engagement?

We are looking for:

For the project green neigh­bour­hood garage, we are search­ing for a max­i­mum of 20 par­tic­i­pants with a back­ground in the fol­low­ing areas:

• Land­scape architecture
• Agri­cul­ture
• Econ­o­my
• Spa­tial Planning
• Munic­i­pal­i­ties
• Real estate development
• NGOs and insti­tu­tions for neigh­bor­hood initiatives
• Social work and sociology
• Archi­tec­ture

How you can participate:

Sim­ply apply and upload:

Your appli­ca­tion should con­tain your per­son­al CV and a let­ter of moti­va­tion of max. 2.000 char­ac­ters. You will receive an answer with­in two weeks.

Submitting a project idea:

Do you have a project idea that you want to real­ize? Does your idea need the sup­port and exper­tise of an inter­na­tion­al community?

Please add to your submission:

• CV
• Project descrip­tion of max. 2.000 char­ac­ters plus a descrip­tion of your ini­tial the­sis and questions
• Request­ed num­ber and back­ground of those you want to work on your project
• A visu­al pre­sen­ta­tion (ren­der­ings, pic­tures, etc.) of your project

Your advan­tages:

• New inputs for your initiative
• Greater inter­na­tion­al attention
• Due to the co-cre­ative coop­er­a­tions, devel­op­ment of com­plete­ly unthought of tech­ni­cal and con­tentu­al solu­tions, financ­ing mod­el and cooperations
• Fan­tas­tic net­work­ing possibility
• Great euro­pean com­mu­ni­ty with a broad set of qual­i­fi­ca­tions to sup­port your project

Submit now: