Drumul Taberei district is one of the most remarkable achievements of the socialist-modernist collective housing project in Romania. The 1960s’ initial planning was based on the principle of the microraion, as a low density, organic and clearly defined urban unit, freed of major traffic, providing access to public facilities and to generous green spaces to the pedestrianized inhabitants. However, due to economic reasons and planning shortcomings, not all the green spaces were completed on time, especially in between the blocks behind the big boulevards. Thus, more out of necessity than desire, the socialist state encouraged a “productive citizenship”, by transferring some maintenance activities to the population. Thus, carrying for the in between green spaces was residents’ responsibility, who were even stimulated to transform other district’s unused spaces into productive gardens.
With the 1989 systemic changes, entailing state’ withdrawal and the radical privatization of public housing stock, the informal practices expanded and took over the district’s in-between spaces at scale. But since the 2000s, such practices were progressively dismissed by the dominant “civilization” discourse, being discouraged, forbidden and sometimes evicted by various local administrations. Nevertheless, gardening by the block survived, rather as an individual and discrete practice, but always ready to bloom again, as it happened during the recent pandemic. The ambivalent and changing attitude in dealing with informal gardening in the past decades results from the contradictions generated by the superimposition of the aesthetizing market-oriented regulatory project on the remains of the socialist institutional heritage and over the legacy of a situated practice of living together.
Without being specific only to Global South contexts, a carefully disobedient form of “urban informality” slowly encroached over the prefabricated modernist built environment and subsequent political projects of the East, emerging into a shared dwelling practice. The informal green practices thrived and have been depicted as a positive phenomenon similar throughout post-socialist CEE countries. Described as “quiet sustainability”, they achieve environmental and social outcomes, without specifically aiming for them, while taking place outside market relations. Moreover, (green) informality evidences the presence of “latent commons”, as a less visible, explicit or affirmative version of commoning. Thus, as a local form of latency, “discreet commoning” is mostly assumed by the dwellers as a way of life and is enabled by an ecosystem of informal practices, which sometimes spatialize as gardens by the block.
The third Network Lab in Drumul Taberei aims to address the narratives, the tools and the policies around informal (green) practices in the context of climate change and of diminishing public participation. By focusing also on challenges and risks when dealing with informality, from the lack of any regulatory framework that can lead to privatizations, exclusions and conflicts, to their suffocation by overinstitutionalized measures and formats, the partners of the Network will share lessons and tools that are learned or used in their own New Town. Therefore, participants are invited to envision how research-driven initiatives can lead to concrete actions to improve dwellers participation and their quality of life by supporting and enabling informal (green) practices.
Programme
Wednesday 2 October 2024
Morning:
Arrival of the participants in Bucharest, at the hotel
13.00 – 15.00: Walk from the hotel through the city centre (optional)
Afternoon:
16.00 – 18.00: Meet at USAMV. Introduction to the theme to the Lab #3 by INTI
and the presentations of the 2 co-referent cities
Evening:
19:00 Dinner
Thursday 3 October 2024
Morning:
09.00 Meet at the Hotel. Transfer to Drumul Taberei district (by public transport)
09.30 – 12.30: Visit Drumul Taberei part 1: Cvartal, Favorit, Moghioros Park, Market, local
stakeholders
13.00 – 14.00: Lunch
Afternoon:
14.00 – 17.00: Visit Drumul Taberei part 2: Bucla, Garage, Flat, local stakeholders.
17.00 – 17.30: Transfer to Văcărești Delta (by public transport)
17.30 – 19.30: Visit Văcărești Delta
19.30 – 20.00: Transfer to city center
Evening:
20:00 Dinner
Friday 4 October 2024
Morning:
09.00 Meet at the Hotel. Transfer to USAMV (by public transport)
09.30 – 12.30: Collaborative workshop and final presentations
Afternoon:
13.00 – 14.00: Lunch.
End of the Lab and departures
