Beschrijving
‘Gardens are omnipresent, but unnoticed’. This was our contradictory observation when we started studying Flemish domestic gardens. Gardens are such a trivial part of our daily lives that we do not consider them as a land use in its own right. Gardens are missing in policies, land use statistics, spatial planning and environmental monitoring. This is probably due to the loss of the garden component behind the façades of built-up land use components in both urban and rural environments.Nevertheless, ‘garden’ is the green and soft counterpart of built-up space. As followers of urbanisation they cushion the villainous concepts of urban sprawl, ribbon development and the consumption of open space with greenery. The sum of all domestic gardens or the ‘garden complex’ can be quite significant. For example in Flanders, gardens count for more than 8 % of the Flemish area. This garden complex, one large regional system, is much more than just the sum of different individual gardens. It can be related to a range of aspects, including food security, environmental management, climate change adaptation, mental wellbeing and physical health,... . The concept of the garden complex therefore elevates the garden theme from triviality to a higher level of scale and significance. So we want to change our first observation ‘Gardens are omnipresent, but unnoticed’ to ‘Gardens are omnipresent and strategically important’. It is time to acknowledge the domestic garden as a strategic land use. Domestic gardens should be taken seriously in both policies and research and the garden complex should be taken into account in the search for strategies to cope with the various challenges of our society, now and in the future.
Based on this gap-alert, we will present own work and external studies that already started filling in this gap or plan to do so. The focus lies on the spatial importance of domestic gardens, the environmental impact of garden management, food security and the adaptation of our daily living environment to climate change. But in order to make the most of the garden complex, we need more research on its structure, characteristics and services and different disciplines need to be in a certain sense ‘re-pioneered’. Future strategic land use plans, certainly in very fragmented regions like Flanders, will have to acknowledge not only the obligatory ‘pure’ land use categories, but increasingly their functional and spatial interfaces as well. The garden complex is indeed a fascinating interface between land use categories (rural versus urban, food production, recreation, etc.). It is a functional and visual transitions between the ‘hard urban areas’ and the ‘soft (semi) natural areas’.
To conclude, emphasizing many strategic concerns including environment, food security, climate and well-being, the garden complex can attain a new mature position in strategies for enhanced sustainability.
| Periode | 2-nov.-2011 → 4-nov.-2011 |
|---|---|
| Titel evenement | EFLA2011 Regional congress - Mind the gap. Landscapes for a new era |
| Soort evenement | Andere |
| Sponsor | Estonian Lanscape Archiects' Union (ELAU) |
| Locatie | Tallinn, EstlandTonen op kaart |
| Mate van erkenning | Internationaal |