A City Garden for a Changing World
A One-day Ideas Workshop

The Workshop Site
The Forecourt of the United Nations Centre in Vienna (VIC)
Workshop Process
Design Response for UNO City Garden
Relevant UN Charters and Policies for the Workshop

The Workshop Site

The Forecourt of the United Nations Centre in Vienna (VIC)
Background In 1966, the Government of Austria made an offer to the United Nations to construct in Vienna an international centre United Nations. on the left bank of the Danube designed by the Austrian architect Johann Staber. The VIC complex, which covers an area of 180,000 m², has extraterritorial status. It accommodates about 3,600 international civil servants from about 100 countries. The Y-shaped office towers reach 120 meters. A vast circular forecourt announces the member nations with a ring of flags.


Model of UN, Vienna
Elevated above by pilotis


View to park and Danube
people in the forecourt

visiting children
modern meets old

Virtual Tour of the United Nations Centre in Vienna http://www.unvienna.org/unov/en/vtour/index.html Workshop Schedule 

  8.30 pm Meet at UN Plaza1.00 - 3.00 pm Groups work up premliminary concepts
10.30 pm Ath the BOKU, begin presentations of participants' selected cities3.00 pm afternoon tea/coffee
12.00 pm Agree on criteria for City Gardens of the Future Collectively develop brief for 21st C City Garden for UN4.15 - 6.00 pm Develop final conceptual designs for exhibition
12.30 pm Select groups (2 - 3) depending on numbers) Get to know group members over lunch

Workshop Process The central ideas that emerged from the individual concept boards were discussed leading to a number of possible approaches for a hypothetical concept design for ‘A City Garden for a Changing World’ using United Nations in Vienna as a notional site. How did individual city concepts link to the forecourt of United Nations? United Nations, as a symbolic place, allowed the participants to contrast the ‘particularities’ of the cities itemised above with the ‘universals’ associated with a global organisation; addressing the conference theme DOES SCALE MATTER?  Relevant extracts from the UN Charter and selected policies were considered. Through actively exploring the ‘particular’ and the ‘universal’ using conceptual designs as the tools, the workshop developed criteria for a ‘City Garden for a Changing World’, addressing the conference theme HOW CAN LANDSCAPE BE A MODEL? 


Central Ideas from shrinking and growing cities
Issues and Concepts for UNO city garden

Let voids become people’s Common Ground

UN -International organisation
Use the concept of ‘field’ as the organiser of space UN -Concerned with harmonious cities
Make green corridors through abandoned land UN-Concerned with global food security
Use desire lines to create city as a garden UN - Concerned with sustainable human settlements
Develop horticultural zones
Develop experimental zones
VIC plaza – high security
Create infrastructure gardens
 		Concept – potential layers
Make micro-gardens in streetsConcept – develop agriculture zones
Develop mobile garden centres for micro-gardens Concept – reveal pilotis
Develop soil-less food generators on wastelands Concept -Respect original design at ground level
Use compressed rubbish as a building material Concept – harness wind and sun
Create ‘illusional’ gardens on media screens in slums Concept – outdoor website screens
Work with diffuse city not congested city
Concept – provide visual link to park

Proposal: a city garden for a changing world - MEMORIAL PLAZA UNO VIENNA A city garden can be more than a park. It can reveal local identity but it can also celebrate the future, revive horticultural/agricultural traditions, be a playful place exploring all the senses, be an empowering place for diverse communities, be a catalyst for eco-design and engaged citizenship and a place of hope while elevating the soul.

The city garden should be a playful place
Maintain the green by playing with trees
Develop green house farming within existing building through mixed use.

Glazed recreational boxes to connect building and plaza to surroundings

Glazed boxes to contain bubbles for individual napping and recreation

City garden should playfully explore all the senses

Sculptural wind turbines as symbols of renewable energy City garden can revive horticultural and agricultural traditions

  • creating leisure zones in gardens
  • self-made gardens for everybody to grow food and flowers

City garden can be a catalyst for eco-design and engaged citizenship Hanging Mobile Gardens Mobile agriculture gardens moving up an down the façade of the main UNO building; micro-gardens infiltrating the building

Making gardens as living art with high visibility City garden can be an empowering place for diverse communities

Micro-gardens from around the world
High visibility send a message around the world about feeding people
City garden can be a place of hope while elevating the soul.

  • Water in the Fountain Plaza – individual and unpredictable – symbol of difference and coming togetherInside the UNO-City different rules are important and respected.
  • The plaza fountain is now following the rules,
  • But the water should be free and unpredictable because UNO-City is a special meeting place.
  • The water stands for different nationalities and individuals where the unpredictable fountain sprinkles water everywhere.
  • The water symbolizes hope, it elevates the soul by allowing difference as well as coming together
  • Because the plaza is tilted slightly towards the park, the water finds its way through the plaza as unpredictable trickles
  • The water rivulets change depending on the wind

The water comes together as a powerful stream that crosses borders

City garden can be a place of hope for an international community

  • The loss of forests and water pollution is a common environmental pre-occupation that is putting our cities and planet in danger
  • The UNO-City garden celebrates a better future through eco-design
  • It engages all the UNO community
  • An arc of trees and shrubs symbolises reclaiming the forests.  Experimental agriculture strips slope towards the water
  • A musical ‘forest’ of pillars surrounds the water and changing sculptures are scattered on the slopes

The UNO-City Garden as Symbol of Food Security                                                                  

Food security risks Food security opportunities
Food SovereigntySelf-administered DIY and micro-gardens
  • crops
Voids as people’s common ground for food production
  • Greenhouses for agriculture and horticulture
Desire lines as connections between articulated spots and security zones
Green Corridors / Ecological connections

Severe risk - self-focusedLow risk - wind/energy crops Relevant Charters and Policies: United Nations Charter www.un.org/aboutun/charter/
CHAPTER IX: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CO-OPERATION Article 55 With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote:

  1. higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development;
  2. solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and
  3. universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.

1. UNHABITAT- World Urban Forum 4, Harmonious Urbanization Nov 2008, Nanjing China http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/6141_42168_BACKGROUNDPAPERFINAL.pdf 2. UNHABITAT – State of the World Cities 2008/2009 Harmonious Cities Part 1: Spatial Harmony Part 2: Social Harmony, Slums, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly Part 4: Planning for Harmonious Cities http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=2562 3. UN Task Force on Global Food Security Crisis http://www.un.org/issues/food/taskforce/ 4. UN Peace Building Architecture: www.un.org/peace/peacebuilding/ 5. Agenda 21:  Ch 7 Promoting Sustainable Human Settlement Development; Item C. Promoting sustainable land-use planning and management http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21toc.htm 6. UN Millennium Development Goals Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability www.un.org/millenniumgoals