The Gardens of the XXI Century
The Chair of Being Alive invites you to join us in discovering the Gardens of the XXI Century. This project is a response to the challenges of our moment, where extractive attitudes toward the nonhuman world lead to out-of-control crises of inequality and climate change. In five current field sites to which we are connected through personal relationships, we are designing with regenerative practices, community and time. Rather than cementing relations into a fixed form, we instead look towards a garden where simple interventions and practices of management enable collaborations between living systems of plants, animals, soil, water, organisms, climate, geology and humans that can unfold over time. By directing existing flows and energies, a garden has the potential to be in conversation with its larger context. Always unfinished, always in process, the form and performances of the garden emerge from the relations that constitute it. With rigor, creativity and care, we hope to transform each site in the direction of its inherent potential.
Below: Gaussen diagrams of the Gardens of the XXI Century, Chair of Being Alive, 2024
By June 2024, we have initiated and developed five gardens of the XXI century in different climate zones around the globe. You can find more information about these projects here.
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Baldomà, Spain: Community-led planting and afforestation of a 12-hectare area burned by a forest fire using water harvesting and microtopography practices (instagram: @jardiseglexxibaldomaalosclua)
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New Orleans, USA: Design and planting of a small native forest (730 m2) using the Miyawaki method in a city most vulnerable to climate change and rising sea levels (instagram: @gardenXXIcenturyneworleans)
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Senan, Spain: Soil regeneration by rotational grazing of horses on marginal land (41 ha) in a rural area of Spain (website: https://thegarden-senan.arch.ethz.ch; instagram: @jardiseglexxisenan_espanya)
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Til-Til, Chile: Investigation of soil cover and land management practices on a 3.5-hectare field in a drought-plagued municipality to create potentials for ecological and social resurrections (instagram: @jardinsigloxxitiltil_chile)
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Zürich, Switzerland: Teaching and experimenting with fieldwork methods and regenerative land management practices on a anthropogenically highly disturbed ground (1000 m2) on ETH campus (instagram: gardenxxicentury_hoenggerberg)
