The Urban Garden Gate Proposal 

by Belinda Pajkovic and Tom Fereday

When initially imagining a garden gate a certain aesthetic is evoked of iron gates and white timber picket fences opening onto a garden. However, sitting in Surry Hills on the fringe of Sydney’s CBD, contemplating the design of a garden gate, gave the brief an urban context.

Space is limited and private gardens are reduced in an urban context. We investigated ideas of gates made out of flexible material that can be adapted into any constrained space, or gardens and gates that are integrated into one. We also explored a retro fit concept where the garden gate is an existing object that can be transformed into a gate.

In an urban context, as private gardens are becoming reduced, public space becomes garden.

So what is an urban garden gate?

Instead of creating a new gate, can we adapt and reuse something existing that transforms elements of our city into urban public gardens?

The Urban Garden Gate proposal takes an existing urban framework and retrofits it with a garden, creating green public spaces throughout the city. The existing framework is a metaphor for the gate and the garden is the new green space created as a result of the retrofit.

We explored retrofitting the following existing frameworks within the city to create unique garden spaces.

By taking the existing public transport system of Sydney, retrofitting each bus, train and ferry with gardens, it transforms the city into a fluid moving garden. When clustered together at transport interchanges they can create bigger public garden nodes.

The existing garbage collection system myriad of bins and dumpsters can be transformed into gardens that can be collected and moved from one place to another creating a flux of temporary public garden installations.

The framework of an office building façade can be re-clad with hanging planters to create new garden spaces for each building. The occupants of the building can harvest the gardens.

The Urban Garden Gate proposal can operate in any urban context where frameworks exist.