Our project breaks down the garden to an understanding of its essence—not as a noun as it is popularly understood, describing a physical place, but as a verb defining exchange of care at all scales. Using St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery as a point of contact, this project focuses on identifying and tending to these areas in the city which have systematically been uncared-for. Considering the history and location of the church grounds, this project proposes a range of garden prototypes for vast networks of care— for the gardener, and the performance of gardening; for rest, rejuvenation, and gathering; for the garden, and the medicinal herbs and vegetables that the space provides with the possibility of growth; for the uncared-for and historically neglected communities in East Village, whose spaces these gardens will be adapted to in order to exchange breath, nutrition, and care. The order of the garden is a reclamation of the urban space. It is a disruption of the formal systems that make up the orders of the city as we know it. It is a network that prioritizes the safety, wellbeing, and growth of all participants— human, non-human, and thing alike.
