Duncairn Gardens Unfinished Business

Where?

54.61230723188158, -5.929768253899942
BT15 2GH – Duncairn Gardens

Description of chosen place

As far as I understand, it's an extensive outdoor exhibition of building material, foundation technique and basement layouts: a fine variety of walls and fences, renewed to perfection a few years ago and now handed back to the urban wilderness.

What do you imagine the space could be?

As these grounds are situated on one of my main walking routes connecting North Belfast to the city centre, one thing is obvious: The area needs bins. Giant bins!!! Many giant bins to accommodate all the litter from the streets, walkways and forgotten spaces nearby (the front garden next door… those sad looking bridges at Yorkgate…). So, as much as I would have liked to come up with a phantastic, funny, weird, megalomaniac idea – first of all I would use these foundations to build a centre for environmental action and education.

With a climate community café open for everybody; outdoor film screenings using the big house wall on the upper end; space for environmental projects, workshops (how to make and decorate your personal reach extender), repair shops, clothes swaps – and bins for separating all the trash, which these foundations seem to be predestined for (with a roof on top it won't get too smelly).

From now on, every other Saturday will be “Happy-North-Belfast-Litter-Picking-Day”, a social, fun event to gather, to learn and to make new friends in the local community. Whoever picks up the most, will be litter king*queen of the day. Everyone welcome to join!

Submitted by

Kathrin Popp

Date

February 19, 2023

About the ‘Forgotten Spaces’ project

We added a competition element and public voting mechanism to the exhibition to encourage engagement over passive viewing. From this process, two submissions – Short Strand Green Wall and Donegall Street Car Park – were allocated the ‘top prize’ of £100, racking up well over 300 stars between them. A discussion event and prize giving was held on Wednesday March 22nd at the Europa Hotel. We were joined by Sean Dolan, Senior Development Manager, Belfast City Council and Seamus Connolly, Group Manager, Neighbourhoods, Regeneration and Sustainability, Glasgow City Council for discussion on methodologies and policies in place for ‘How to Regenerate Forgotten Spaces?’. In the continuing spirit of democracy the event audience got to vote to give special commendations for ‘inspiring our collective imagination’ to a further three entries from a shortlist – those selected were Clandeboyne Corner, Inner City Forest (east) and The Church at Fountainville Ave.

With Forgotten Spaces we were interested in derelict buildings, waste-grounds, and development sites in that limbo-state, not because we were trying to address the myriad of complexities about land ownership, access or regeneration but rather because we were trying to draw attention to the vast number of neglected, unloved and underused spaces of the city which seem to get forgotten or ignored in top-level conversations. Imagination is a muscle – you need to feed it, feed it with ideas from other places, people, positive news - hopefully this project is feeding your imagination.

We’re not sure what the next stage will be (or if there will be one) but are always open to discussion ideas. Get in touch if you think we can help you or you can help us.

Meadhbh McIlgorm, Project Curator

Duncairn Gardens Unfinished Business

Where?

Description of chosen place

What do you imagine the space could be?

Submitted by

Date

Social

Contact

About the ‘Forgotten Spaces’ project