What are vertical gardens? Vertical gardens are preferred by amateur gardeners and are suitable for both indoor and outdoor gardens. In addition, they are great for urban farming because they are practical and diverse. They bring life to spaces, create community and help the busy city person to connect with nature and relax.

To promote urban farming, Sofia Development Association, Sofia Green and Applied Research and Communications Fund are organizing design seminars “DIY - vertical garden set”. The seminars are part of the pilot activities of the CityZen project, which promotes urban farming as a successful driving force for economic and social transformation by introducing the concept to policy makers.

The design seminars are held in two stages - on October 11, 30 participants learned the basics of design thinking, shared their experience with gardening and outlined the framework of necessary actions that would help promote urban farming in Sofia. The teams consist of students, entrepreneurs, vertical gardening experts, designers, agri-environmentalists, and marketing specialists. After exchanging ideas and experiences, the participants were divided into 4 groups and embarked on a creative process of making small models of vertical gardens, which later turned into prototypes. Creating the models was very colorful and fun, but also useful for the next stage.

The teams have one week to develop the four models into real products - vertical gardens, to be presented during the second stage of the seminars, which will be held on Monday, September 18. Students from the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy took a leading role in this process.

After the presentation of the prototypes by the students on Monday, the participants will choose the most suitable among them for multiplication. The prototypes will be piloted in four specially selected places in the city - Sofia Tech Park AD, a Sofia Municipality building, an office building, as well as in a residential building.

After testing the developed prototypes from the point of view of sustainability and continuity, it is planned as part of the project to develop an instruction that will allow anyone to make their own vertical garden effortlessly and quickly from easily available materials on the market.

CityZen project is funded by the INTERREG EUROPE programme, cofunded by EU’s ERDF.