himmelbeet

Community garden himmelbeet is located on a former brownfield site in Ruheplatzstraße 12 in 13347 Berlin, close to the U-bahn station Leopoldplatz. Initially it was planned as a rooftop garden, then they moved to a brownfield due to the fire protection measures (Karge, 2015, p. 117). The garden is a non-profit project supported by himmelbeet gemeinnützige GmbH and the support association zusammen wachsen e.V.

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The garden’s aim is to provide easy access to community gardening, meeting place and space for cultural and educational initiatives (Karge, 2015, p. 103). According to the garden’s website, officials’ goals are: “more justice, more togetherness, more perspective”. They believe that community garden should give access to education, healthy food and can be used as network and platform for the neighbourhood and community. The goal “more perspective” deals with social and ecological crises by focusing in particular on topics such as climate change, consumerism, populism, social transformations and city development. The project speaks out against racism and other discrimination.

Garden provides free beds to charities, cooperating with schools, kindergartens and other social institutions. Part of the beds are leased by neighbours or used by groups of volunteers. The garden aims to be ecological and to protect biodiversity so there is great variety of crops reflecting the preferences of different groups of gardeners. The garden café is built of pallets and clay according to the low-waste-principle.

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himmelbeet is one of the gardens that signed “Urban gardening manifest” aimed at influencing local government and city planners to recognize of urban gardens in the spatial development plan and urban planning, so that both – protection of gardens and access to urban greenery for all residents are guaranteed.

Like other urban gardening projects, the status of himmelbeet is unsafe. After long discussions with the city and district administration, the decision was made and himmelbeet has to move after 2020. The space currently occupy by garden will be used by “Amandla eduFootball e.V.” sport project. Himmelbeet is still looking for a new location (Mayayo, 2019, p. 35; himmelbeet.de).

Bibliography:

• Karge, T. (2016). Neue Urbane Landwirtschaft: Eine theoretische Verortung und Akteursanalyse der Initiative Himmelbeet im Berliner Wedding. Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin (eds.), Vol. 79, [Accessed 08. Apr. 2020].
• Mayayo, A. M., van Koppen, K. and Buijs, A. (2019). Community gardens as possible challengers of (eco) gentrification?. MSc Thesis, Wageningen University & Research, Environmental Policy Group [Accessed 10. Mar. 2020].

Websites:

• himmelbeet gemeinnützige GmbH (2020), official webpage himmelbeet gGmbH, [Accessed 10. Mar. 2020].
• Urban Gardening Manifest (2014), Die Stadt ist unser Garten, gemeinnützige Stiftung bürgerlichen Rechts, Daniel Überall, [Accessed 10. Mar. 2020].

Author: Leonie Sommer