Grow Pasaz Wiecha
Our challenge was to transform a sanitized shopping street into a sensual growing patch during the three-week long Warsaw Under Construction festival.
The project emerged following our selection for the Architecture Foundation’s exchange programme, New Architects: London_ Warsaw. We were interested in continuing our explorations of using food growing as a means to encourage public ownership of shared spaces.
Our site, Pasaz Wiecha, was a long straight pedestrian alley running between soviet era housing developments and 21st century global retail giants. Its recent redevelopment saw the replacement of seats and planters for polished new public realm, erasing human-scale street furniture and opportunities to linger and interact.
Our proposal was a pop-up garden composed of lavender, mint, parsley, fennel and chives, grown in 280 custom made hessian carrier bags. At either end of the installation, stood two elevated sheds that acted as viewing platforms and places of shelter, returning a human scale to the long shopping street.
“I want to commend you for such a great initiative! I am a just one inhabitant of this city and have discovered this wonderful rural oasis which offers a completely different experience of this part of town.”
Feedback received during the festival
We worked closely with the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, curators of the festival, to deliver the project and engage with local residents, who were invited to the opening event via a postcard drop. At the opening of the garden, residents were invited to ’adopt’ a fragment of the garden by attaching their name to a bag. In return, they were asked to look after the plants and water them for the duration of the festival. During the course of the installation, the garden was left unsecured for the public to enjoy at any time of the day or night, and, despite being near a notorious nightspot, was left undisturbed.
At the end of the installation, the garden began to disperse throughout the city as the fragments of the garden were carried home by their new owners. As they were carried away, the bags of plants seemingly disappeared against the throngs of shoppers, taking on the appearance of goods procured on the street.