Vacant Lot is an example of social sustainability where the residents are activated to bring more social cohesion to their neighbourhoods, and to strengthen the (experience of) urban nature and urban farming. The project takes vacant plots in deprived urban areas in London into use. The neighbourhoods are given new green outdoor spaces, urban farming plots and meeting places. The project provides for collective use of locations that are made accessible and laid out with bespoke design elements. From 2007 to 2015, 21 of such allotment gardens were created in London for 880 residents, with a total surface area of 1.9 acres. Vacant Lot is an example of what is happening in many cities. In Berlin, the activists of Nomadisch Grün are active; in Rotterdam, Creatief Beheer is; and the NoHo district in New York runs the Community Garden District programme. In addition to support for urban nature, such projects provide important small steppingstones that can strengthen the ecological system as a whole.
-London (GB), From 2007
-Designers collective What if: Projects
more info: website Vacant lot
