Successful launch of the Platform Productive Urban Green for Berlin

About 40 people attended the (test)launch of Berlin’s new Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün [Platform Productive Urban Green] on Tuesday 26th November 2019 to which the Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection [Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz] had invited.

Ursula Renker, Head of the Office for Open Space Planning and Urban Green [Referat Freiraumplanung und Stadtgrün], welcomed the guests and highlighted in her speech the significance of the Platform‘s first component – the website Community Gardening – as a tool to advance the communication between the city’s political and administrative bodies and civil society on issues around the planning of Berlin’s urban green. Dr. Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen gave in her keynote a short overview of the 20-year history of community gardening in Berlin. At the first gardening conference in 1998, one wouldn’t have dreamed that there would now be more than 200 community gardens established in the city!

The AG Stadt & Ernährung [Working Group City& Food] planned, ran and facilitated the event and has been commissioned by the Senate to develop the Platform through a participatory process.

Katrin Bohn is a founder member of the Berlin-based Working Group City & Food and, with Beatrice Walthall, accompanies the project for this group.

Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün is here.

For information on the Working Group City & Food see here.

For more information on the design of the project see here.

Image: After the actual live testing of the website, participants discussed its role in the development of Berlin’s city-wide concept for community gardens and allotments. (source: Beatrice Walthall 2019)