Project
Orchesta Design
61°69 garden: co-building a community garden in Siberia
Khanty-Masiisk, Russia
Public plays
Naturehood – wilder and greener
Image: orchestradesign
61°69 is a co-designed and co-built community garden by teenagers in Siberia, and curated through a series of thematic educative workshops.

The 61°69 garden has been imagined first and foremost as an experimental educational platform - in 2019, the community garden was built as a result in the city of Khanty-Masiisk located in Siberia, within a derelict residential courtyard.

The laboratory was open to all local high school students, teenagers and young professionals - in total 15 students participated in the project and many more local volunteers helped in co-building and planting in the garden. From March to September, curators from St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Kazan, Moscow, Yaroslavl and Krasnodar held a series of workshops for them on cultural journalism, forum theater, public art, urban design or on storytelling. These workshops informed the design concept of the garden (starting from its name!), in particular its placemaking approach with a "tree house", a garden with native plants with its educative signage and a small amphitheatre.

The central "tree house" was inspired by the house that the children of the
neighbouring courtyards tried to build in the past. One of the important lesson of the workshops was the need to create a "hidden" space comfortable for a couple of children together. The small ladder to access the platform has specific dimensions to be comfortable for young kids only.

The natural relief of the site made it possible to create a small amphitheater around small existing trees - a community space for small community events.

Finally at the entrance to the garden, an educational installation
presents the native plant species used in the garden, identified during the workshops.

Participants of the laboratory participated in the co-design process for each installations and during the construction of the garden, supervised by professionals. At the opening of the garden, an open theatre performance was co-created with the participants, together with events such as concerts, picnic and co-planting to create a festive week-end opening.

Since the opening, a community manager for the garden was appointed to animate social-media accounts, with more than 400 instagram posts since the opening (@lab_hm).

The 61°69 garden is a project by Orchestra Design in collaboration with Lift architecture.

Impact

The 61°69 garden is a successful example of a co-design and co-building community garden, imagined as an open educative process, starting from the project inception to the implementation, opening and even after two years after its construction.

Educational signages to present the different native plants used in the garden

Community amphitheater for small events

Community amphitheater for small events

Co-building process with teenagers participants

"tree house" specially designed for young kids

Orchesta Design

Orchestra Design is an architectural studio based in Paris and St-Petersburg, combining urban design and cultural programming to create hybrid spaces which encourage interactions and generates cultural commons. Our team designs public spaces, develops urban development strategies and masterplans, creates design projects and public programs for cultural clusters and community centers.

Architectural practice
France