Open Greens

Concepts and Considerations

A very brief and condensed definition of Open Greens could be coined as following:

Open Greens are publicly accessible areas in urban environments where human and non human natures, cultures and technologies overlap to enter into a variety of relationships, some of which can be coined as communicative and symbiotic.

However, we can of course also provide a more detailed exploration of the concept. Thus, here are further considerations.

Open Greens are spaces dominated by vegetation (= greens) that are accessible to the public (= open). In a broader sense, we might think of Open Greens situated anywhere, even in the so called wilderness and for sure on the countryside. However, most obviously the idea Open Greens is most closely related to greens in urban (or suburban) space(s). Nevertheless, it is important to keep a wider radius in mind – and, as we will see, this wider radius has a lot to do with the concept of openness.

Of course the history and present of digital culture can show over and over again how difficult it is to define the term "open". One might claim that any definition of "open" has to come with a certain amount of context information: Open to whom? Open for what?

Concerning Open Greens, the fist question can be answered relatively easy: "Open" indeed means accessible to a broad public. Even in case not everybody might be aware of it, everybody can get access. The optimum, if not to speak of a necessary condition for a fully acknowledged Open Green will be a 24/7 hrs accessibility without any restrictions.

Answering the second question is, however, considerably harder. Should Open Greens be open for every use we can imagine?
As a matter of fact, we will have a hard time to find a space on earth that is not owned by somebody – be it an individual, an institution, a nation and so forth. Thus, we have to assume there is no real "no man's land". Consequently, we have to assume there is no Open Green that is not owned by somebody. This does not mean this somebody obviously takes care about what is happening on or with the Open Green. Moreover, it is possible, if not highly probable, other parties have to be taken in account as well, i.e. people living in the surrounding, and, most notably of course the species living within the Open Green.
Thus, there good reasons not to assume any Open Green is open for everything. Rather, what is possible or not will have to be researched and found out, and any activities related to Open Greens will have to be more or less continuously negotiated with the needs of others (be them human or not).

Note: There are greens – be them situated in the so called "wilderness" , in the countryside or even situated close to or within urban spaces – that are relatively open, yet only partially and/or temporarily open or not open at all to human access for a variety of possible reasons. Most prominent examples: nature reserves or areas with related temporarily restrictions (i.e. for breeding season). While the former – just as other areas that are more or less inaccessible for humans "by nature" – would not be qualified as Open Greens, it might be well debatable to think of the latter as "Temporarily Open Greens".

Especially in urban space, the 27/7 hrs condition may be debatable and one might still accept certain restrictions. There might be Open Greens being not that easily accessible or not accessible at all in certain time windows, i.e. due to weather conditions (or secondary effects like flooding), due to traffic peaks (i.e. hindering to cross streets). Moreover, any kind of the processes of negotiation mentioned above are obviously more complicated in urban environments.

In the context of the TIME BENDING CLOCK Open Greens are researched as possible nodes, especially related to the concept of [EcoTimeZones]" (see ibid.)

In the context of Time Inventors' Kabinet (TIK, see ibid.), however, Open Greens are a broader topic. Moreover, there are also different concepts for Open Greens as well – i.e. more closely related to gardening, but also following a different concept of openness that is not that strictly defined in terms of accessibility.

A more specific subdivision of Open Greens are Connected Open Greens (COGs, see ibid.) . Connected Open Green are not only on focus in the context of Time Inventor's Kabinet. They are probably also important in relation to research on Open Greens as possible [TBC nodes].

Related entries:
Connected Open Greens
[EcoTimeZones]
[TBC Nodes]
[Time Inventors' Kabinet (TIK)]
[Time Sicknesses]
…

tags: botany, ecology, green, plants, space, tik, time, urban cultures