Welcome to the Atlas

The Willowbank Community Garden is a council-maintained recreational area consisting of both turfed and concreted areas and waist raised beds, edged by some shrubs and trees. It is a small space (460 sqm.) but offers a variety of growing environments. The site is located within the residential community of Willowbank Crescent, easily accessible from Woodlands Road and a five-minute walk away from the Glasgow University main buildings. Local schools are also in close proximity. The place offers locally grown foods with aesthetics and contributes to urban green space. In 2012, it won "Keep Scotland Beautiful" Award (Ref 2).

Wirral Waters is the largest regeneration project in the UK. It will transform over 500 acres of the Birkenhead docklands into an internationally recognizable destination (where e.g. innovation and sustainability will thrive). (Ref. 1, 2). While the whole project will take up to 30 years to finish, the first phase has started in 2019 and building work has begun on three projects which will bring 1,000 homes and breathe new life into 500 acres of former dockland in the town. £220 million will be invested in the next three to four years alone in an effort to build high quality, high-density accommodation with lots of green space and employment opportunities close by (Ref 10,11).

The woodland community garden is the main project of the Woodland community. Since 2010 they have transformed a derelict urban waste dumping site into a thriving community garden and ‘outdoor community centre’. Since then it has become an important local space where people make new friends and feel part of the community. It’s also a great place to unwind from the everyday stresses and strains of city life. Each year, around 50 households grow their own fruit, vegetables and herbs in the garden’s raised beds. The garden has over 50 raised beds where local people can grow their own food with beds allocated on an annual basis. For people who do not have raised beds there are still plenty of opportunities to get involved, including via twice-weekly volunteer sessions. The garden is a wonderfully therapeutic space that helps people to recover from the stresses and strains of everyday life. (Ref 1)

Woodland project is a council project to improve woodlands. During the last 50 years, “lifestyles have changed, leading to a change in the state of the woods”. The result is that the trees are ageing, becoming overgrown with dominant species and losing their wildlife. The woodlands in Reading need work to protect them (for future generations) and the council has therefore produced a Woodland Management Plan in partnership with the Forestry Commission. The plan aims to manage 18 sites of woodland in Reading and implementation of these plans will involve benefits for e.g. the wildlife and community. (Ref. 1, 2, 4)

As part of World Tree day celebrated on March 21, 2017 the Sintra Service for Protection of the Nature and the Environment (SEPNA) as well as the Sintra Branch Segura School carried out several education workshops for school children to inform about the importance of tress for our natural environment and carried out afforestation and reforestation actions inside the green spaces of Sintra. (1)

The oasis is one of the favourite destinations especially by naturalist photographers of the region, thanks to the presence of numerous animal and plant species. The oasis covers an area of about 20 hectares, is part of a SIC and ZPS area of 40 hectares and its management has been entrusted to the Noale WWF Cave Oasis Committee. It used to be a clay extraction area that got abandoned for several years. It was restored to create a new wild habitat that the local government declared a protected area (1, 2 and 4).

Doh Eain, which means “Our Home” in the Burmese language, is a community-centred design firm that converts trash alleys in Yangon into gardens, composting stations, street markets, playgrounds, and art galleries, where community members can make memories and positive change.
As Yangon has one of the lowest public space-per-person ratios in South East Asia, Doh Eain saw a role for a social enterprise to preserve and improve heritage and urban landscapes directly with the people and communities who inhabit them. Doh Eain’s vision is to collectively make cities more vibrant, inclusive and sustainable places to live, work, and enjoy by maintaining the city's unique characteristics and creating an urban environment that enables people and society to thrive. Their mission is to preserve heritage, improve public spaces, and organise activities that connect people with places, employing a user-centred and participatory approach. In doing this, they aim to inspire and enable people to participate in reshaping their city while retaining cultural heritage (1).
The Yangon's alley gardens project started when a group of young, local and expatriate residents in Yangon decided to set up a small permaculture garden, however, they could not find a suitable plot of land for it (2). As a consequence they had to change the focus and transplant green pots filled with vegetation and vegetables into the back alleys. The implementer used an innovative technique by using bokashi composting of food waste, with around 80 households signing up to take part in the initiative. (5)
The initiative was quite successful as it helped break the cycle of throwing trash out the window into alleyways and built several elevated garden beds. (6)

On a yearly basis, the city of Zagreb, Zagrebački holding plants new trees and bushes to maintain Zagreb as a green city with 114 hectares of green spaces (Ref 2). Also includes maintenance of green surfaces, such as grass in public parks along with tram tracks and planting new trees and maintaining existing ones next to kindergartens and schools (Ref 2). Maintenance of city parks, lawns and tree lines includes cleaning, mowing and collecting grass and garbage from green areas, restoration of trampled lawns, maintenance and pruning of trees, shrubs and hedges, maintenance and care of seasonal and permanent flower beds, maintenance of paved and dune areas in parks and installation and maintenance of urban equipment in parks and children's playgrounds (Ref 1).

“Zagreb for Me” was an ambitious and comprehensive project launched in 2015 by the Zagreb Society of
Architects in cooperation with the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Zagreb and the City of Zagreb.
The goal of the project was to start a revitalization of public spaces through the realization of 17 urban
interventions in the whole city area at the same time. This distributed approach aimed to improve the general
“image of the city” and raise the quality of urban life in segments of housing, recreation, leisure and social
cohesion and revitalization of Zagreb's public spaces using public participation as a tool. This project aims to decentralize designed public spaces and draw attention to some forgotten city spots. At the same time, the project, created from a “bottom-up” initiative, establishes a new model of public participation as well as new forms of collaboration (Ref 1, 2, 3). The project "Zagreb for me" was created on the basis of Acupuncture of the city - an interdisciplinary approach and public participation, but it covers a wider urban space, ie it deals with public spaces throughout Zagreb. After the conducted urban-architectural tenders for the selected solutions, the realization is planned. Only one urban-architectural tender was conducted and the implementation of the project stopped there, but the project "Zagreb for me" was recognized as an example of good practice with the possibility of application in other cities. (Ref 5)

Zollverein is an abandoned colliery and coking plant near the center of Essen in Germany (Ref. 6). Since 1993 the mining here stopped, and the site was turned into a derelict area, so nature could win back its territory. Most of the railway tracks and the smaller industrial leftovers are now covered with moss, grass, and weeds (Ref. 4). After the site was recognized as a World Heritage Site in 2001, it started being developed as a multifunctional cultural, tourist and recreational center keeping and developing biotopes that emerged over time (Ref. 11).