Urban Guerrilla Issue 6: How a Community Green Spot Turned from Wasteland into a Little Wild Field

Text/ Liu Che-wei, Gorilla Green Guerrilla
Lead image/ You Ping-fang

"Marcovaldo's gaze roamed over the whole city, hoping to find its other side -- beneath the city of paint, asphalt, glass and stucco, a city of bark, fish scales, knots and veins. The buildings he passed every day now seemed to him porous piles of sandstone; the fences of construction sites were the stalks of fresh pines with jewel-like knots; on the signboards of cloth shops lay curled the sleeping caterpillars that would turn into butterflies." -- Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo

We nicknamed this place the Little Wild Field.

This is a piece of state-owned land adopted by the "Wenzhou Community Development Association of Da'an District, Taipei City," located among the alleys of the Gongguan Wenluoting area. In earlier years it was a Japanese-style dormitory of the Water Resources Agency, which was later taken over by the National Property Administration; the buildings were demolished and the site left abandoned.

Gorilla Green Guerrilla and the Wenzhou Community Development Association work together to maintain an open, community-resident-participatory process of creating a green spot, turning this idle state-owned land into community public space and integrating the "green spot" into the daily life of the neighborhood.

But what exactly is a "community green spot"?

(The original Japanese-style dormitory of the Water Resources Agency | The cleared vacant lot)

We can first look at the concept of the Community Garden, which has been practiced in European and American cities for many years.

Whether in a densely populated metropolis or a small or medium-sized city, there is a vacant lot in the city with many small garden plots, and each plot has its owner. This owner lives near the vacant lot and can ride a bicycle here to plant favorite flowers, grasses and edible plants. This is a community garden. These gardens are not just land for cultivation; they are also a leisure park where local residents stroll and tend plants, a market where neighbors buy and sell fresh seasonal vegetables and fruits, and a public space that brings people together and enhances exchanges among nearby residents.

Can these romantic descriptions really be realized in this realistic city?

(In the early adoption period, waste was cleared and transported by manpower | A gravel path was laid)

Let's just do it first and talk later!

In the early period of adopting the vacant lot, we first gathered by manpower the waste bricks left over from the demolition of the Japanese-style dormitory and piled them in a corner of the lot. Then we laid a gentle path that could be walked into the site and cleared a small flat area where community activities could be held. At the same time, we created several small garden plots beside the path, planted various herb plants, and set up a rainwater harvesting system to provide water for irrigation.

(Setting up a rainwater harvesting system | Creating simple herb garden plots)

Beside the vacant lot there are two Macaranga tanarius trees and one large-leaved banyan, whose tall canopies extend into the lot to form shade. Under the shade is a simple bamboo shed, and under the bamboo shed is a not-so-simple bread oven. It was once the hottest star among the Roosevelt Road demonstration green spots, but unfortunately the bread oven's old home faced urban renewal, so it could only say goodbye to the community residents and in January of this year it ended up settling in the Little Wild Field.

(The bread oven made by residents of Linxing Village and NGO groups, moved to the Little Wild Field)

In February of this year, during the Lantern Festival, we held our first community activity, "Lantern Festival Celebration After Dark!", inviting community residents and the Bao Tu Tu parade team from the Treasure Hill International Art Village to come together at the Little Wild Field to share warm tangyuan.

In addition to public activities, some community residents also spontaneously planted vegetable seedlings and lily seedlings in the Little Wild Field; at the same time, we set up a "second-hand potted plant exchange area" so residents could bring their home potted plants to the Little Wild Field to show them off and help find them their next owner. These ongoing public activities and small spatial improvements really can help community residents gradually become familiar with this place.

("Lantern Festival Celebration After Dark!" activity | Community sharing tea party)

However, although many residents often pass by this place, because they have not grasped accurate information about the adopted land, they deeply fear that stepping into it would be an intrusion on private property, and some even think this is a construction site about to begin work. Some residents also worry whether using the bread oven without electricity would produce thick smoke and create fire safety concerns, or whether opening the vacant lot for vegetable growing would instead make the environment messy.

We remain optimistic about all kinds of opinions regarding the Little Wild Field and try to turn the expression of these opinions into an opportunity for public discussion. We once held a Little Wild Field information tea party, inviting residents to participate and share their views, to discuss together the various possibilities of the Little Wild Field and think about the directions in which we could still work hard.

(A small garden plot adopted by a resident | A street cat that stays in the wild field)

Currently, the adoption and creation of small garden plots is in full swing on the vacant lot, open to community households willing to grow plants so they can manage their own small garden plots.

These green thumbs include an grandmother with many years of vegetable-growing experience, a gentleman who only loves growing lily seedlings, a mother who wants to create an herb garden, and a stylish male traditional Chinese medicine doctor who wants to grow chili peppers. In addition, enthusiastic street cat care volunteers also regularly come to the Little Wild Field to feed street cats and care about all kinds of things on the vacant lot. The vacant lot that had been abandoned for more than ten years has gradually begun to show vitality. Compared with other idle state-owned land in this city, the "Little Wild Field" has a very different fate and possibilities.

The Inspiration of the Little Wild Field

For Gorilla Green Guerrilla, we are exploring the unique rhythm of exchange in a university community, finding our own pace within it, and shaping the public meaning of community public space through it; at the same time, we also optimistically hope that the Little Wild Field can become a living field recognized by community residents and gradually realize those romantic garden imaginations.

Through the "Little Wild Field" experience accumulated from continuous garden management, Gorilla Green Guerrilla is also slowly thinking about how, within Taiwan's real social context, to view the "community green spot," this kind of public space different from park green space. It involves the dimension of community building and is also a potential force in promoting urban farming.

We hope that one day we can further explain to everyone the substantive meaning of the "community green spot," its various possible forms, and its extraordinary significance for an ecological city.

Domestic community green spot websites:
●  Looking for the Little Wild Field!
●  Roosevelt Road Green Community Life -- Flora Expo Branch Line
●  Green Urban and Rural Sustainable Community Experimental Project - Taoyuan Zhongtai Zhongsheng Community

Foreign community garden agencies and websites:
●  United States and Canada: ACGA – Growing Communities across the U.S. ＆ Canada
●  New York: GreenThumb
●  Philadelphia: Neighborhood Gardens Association / A Philadelphia Land Trust (NGA)
●  Seattle: P-Patch Community Gardens – Growing Communities
●  Los Angeles: Los Angeles Community Garden Council
●  Vancouver: Vancouver’s Community Gardens
●  United Kingdom: Landshare – connecting growers to people with land to share
●  Australia: Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network
●  Hong Kong, China: Community Garden Programme
●  Barcelona: URBAN GARDENS – Cultivating Barcelona