The Tempelhof Field is a unique site that facilities community connection and collaboration between diverse groups.

Tempelhof Airport was decommissioned and closed to the public in 2009, before opening again on May 8th of 2010; this time known as Tempelhofer Feld. Since then, the park’s diverse offerings of activity, vast open space, and wide breadth of users has made it a unique space of community connection within Berlin. In an interdependent relationship, the environmental character of the field as well as its protection under law creates space for a wide variety of activity to take place in the center of the city. The field facilitates meeting, connection, and collaboration between diverse groups of people. 

Activities on the field directly facilitate the meeting of people and their continuous interaction or collaboration, as well as materializing people’s personal values that further connect people to each other and the space. Activity on Tempelhof includes, but is not limited to: windsports, traditional group sports, educational opportunities and classrooms, multiple community gardens, bike workshops, historical walks, ecology conservation efforts, tours, community gardening, barbecuing areas, and more. 

Many of these activities are directly enabled or inspired by the site’s environmental characteristics, such as expansive flat open space and large meadows with high wind, which are unique within a city of this size. Its status as a public space and the activities that occur on it enable people to come together and collaborate while creating or engaging in these activities—making it a clear social space of meeting and exchange.¹ The unique combination of environmental character and social possibility is recognized by its users, with one of my participants stating directly that if there wasn’t such a large area that could be used freely, the field would not exist as it is with its current social uses.² The value of this unique social and environmental overlap is well recognized by citizens and administrative bodies, and is protected under the Tempelhof Field Law (ThfG), which passed in a 2014 referendum.³

The environmental uniqueness of the field is not only on account of its size but in its contrast to its urban surroundings. Even in 1897, anthropologist Friedrich Naumann commented that “no greater contrast is conceivable than coming from Berlin to Tempelhofer Feld…nowhere else in Germany is there a similar sight”.⁴ The impact of this large meadow area crisscrossed by the tarmacs of its former life is twofold: an area rich in nature conservation and environmental benefit opportunity, and a space to meet, play, build, and imagine. “Due to the size of the field and the different features of its areas – from the roller rink to the barbecue area, from the beer garden to the dog run, from the skate park to the neighborhood garden – a variety of different uses are possible”.⁵ It is enough space for everyone to work together, or, find their niche if they need it.⁶ The preservation of the environmental character allows for the space’s continued use by specific activity groups (for example: open, windy fields make windsports possible).

Urban green space (UGS) has many benefits and is vital for the production of well-functioning cities. Its main benefits are the facilitation of recreation and health opportunities, conservation of biodiversity, identity formation in cities, and general improvement of quality of life.⁷ Some of the activities that take place on the field include community gardens and environment centers such as Allmende Kontor, the M.I.N.T Green Classroom, and the Lernort Natur (Nature Learning Space). These instances bring humans closer to their environment and to each other through educational initiatives, community volunteer activities, and social gatherings. Sometimes, such as with Allmende-Kontor, they serve as spaces open to the general public for sitting, walking, or communing. These, and many more citizen initiatives, bring together Berlin residents around activities that use natural space, such as bee-keeping, raised-bed gardening, ecology education sessions, or group social events. 

“We are a community garden, which also means that we do things together and of course we’ve become friends over the years and we meet up and organize action days together, but we also use the field and the garden simply as a place to rest and relax.”⁸

 First chairman of the Allmende-Kontor and bee-keeper Juan Coka Arcos expressed a similar outlook, recounting how he gained a new friend group solely through their shared interest in learning to bee-keep (they are now the annual beekeeping team for the garden). He hosts educational workshops to teach children and other gardeners about bees and help people think critically about the natural processes around them. Other social events held by Allmende-Kontor and other organizations take place regularly to get new people involved with various groups on the field. 

The interests in gardening for joy, wanting to socialize and find community, make a positive contribution to the appearance of green space, create safe and enjoyable spaces for family, recreate, and a host of other personal and pedagogical motives are common across Berlin’s community gardens.⁹ Additionally, the adoption of responsibility and involvement of one’s community was a main motive of many community gardeners in Berlin, something which both interviewees from Allmende Kontor’s leadership team expressed valuing about their activity on the field, with Juan noting that responsibility was often shared among all volunteers if needed.¹⁰ 

While the gardens are not primarily intended to produce food or to combat food insecurity, the reasons previously expressed as motives for becoming—and staying—involved in community gardens are visible across Berlin and on Tempelhof Field.  

Another unique facet of the field’s activity is their exploratory and creative nature. Most of the field initiatives and activities are Pioneer Projects, community proposed projects supported by volunteers and run by an executive board of volunteers. The field uniquely, “offers civil society an option space in which new things can be tested and experienced and where people can exchange ideas”, both in realms of recreation and of cultural encounters.¹¹ 

These instances prove to be spaces where citizens of vastly different backgrounds and social groups meet and connect, which is something those involved in field initiatives value greatly. Diverse activities are valued in their own right, but demographic diversity of field users was named by interviewees as very important and personally valued. Because the activity offerings themselves are so diverse, groups are able to entice and involve diverse groups of citizens. 

Activities are not just exciting, they’re accessible. Diversity of users is enabled by accessibility of the field. Section 3 of the ThfG ensures the goal of “barrier-free movement”, and “accessibility without exception” for all on the field.¹² The law’s subsequent Development and Maintenance Plan (EPP) includes guidelines that ensure accessibility, inclusion, and equal opportunity in all user groups throughout development and maintenance plans.¹³ As an accessible public space, users are able to reach, and become routinely involved in, activities that connect them to other field users not necessarily from their neighborhood or walk of life. Through numerous instances of citizen meeting and engagement over the past 10 years, users have also “shaped the field,” according to Kristin Hensel from Allmende-Kontor.¹⁴ Gardeners are very present on the field, she said, offering recreation and shade in this “fallow land without trees”, so people have begun to associate the field with the many gardens and thus the garden users.¹⁵ 

Beyond organized activities or dedicated community gardens, the vast openness and natural space of the field enables social meeting and grouping among friends and for personal recreation and relaxation. Interviewees expressed using the space as somewhere to meet friends for barbecues, hanging out, drinking, or personal recreation like skating, meditating, listening to music, relaxing, or walking.¹⁶ Simply enjoying the space on one’s own or with friends was spoken of as a favorite use, and despite not always being the closest park to one’s house, it was a go-to spot for meeting up with friends or for taking visitors. The ability to disconnect from the city’s hustle and bustle is something Juan, his friends, and fellow gardeners value, citing the free and open feelings as instrumental to escaping the city’s urban energy.¹⁷

Connection through recreational activity is one of the most prominent facets of the field, but there is also a strong current of connection through civic engagement and government liaising. Because of the field’s unique status as a protected urban green and historical space, infrastructure for civic involvement in governmental planning has emerged. Through official groups like the Field Coordination (Feldkoordination), field forums, thematic workshops, and activism organizations like 100% Tempelhofer Feld, citizens have a variety of pathways to become involved in efforts to shape and protect the space. One example, The Field Coordination group is composed of representatives from the field’s managing LLC, Berlin Senate, and involved citizens, meant to ensure openness and cooperation between government and citizens. As a result of activism groups and administrative bodies, citizens meet to organize and carry out protests and demonstrations, campaigns, and populate representative bodies. Kristin Hensel shared her involvement in these Demos (protests), both as a private citizen sharing her support for the field but also as a representative of her organization.¹⁸ Demonstrations in support of the field’s protection occurred frequently in the years leading up to the 2014 referendum for its protection, and continue onward as some continue to propose developing the field. A current civic effort is aimed at having the space protected as a UNESCO world heritage site.¹⁹ 

The prominence of civic involvement in the governmental maintenance of the field and civic volunteerism as a means of accomplishing projects is a continuation of the rise of civic initiatives in Berlin in the 1970s. Social movements and citizen initiatives (Bürgerinitiativen) swept Berlin and Germany during the environmental movement, which also saw resistance to administrative control of urban greenery.²⁰ The persistence of activism for urban greenery protection is acute on Tempelhof Field today. Historically, urban gardening in Berlin was strongly connected to these urban social movements; examples of that remain, with interviewees expressing strong involvement in activism to secure the field.²¹ We also see Tempelhof embody a larger shift toward community gardening in Berlin as a form of volunteer opportunity.²² 

This emphasis on volunteer based projects can be understood as a continuation of broader outsourcing of local responsibilities by the government to the shoulders of volunteers, and a preference of citizens to have decisive power in the creation of their community spaces.²³ With the dissolution of the Tempelhof Freiheit development plan, civic initiatives in the form of volunteer-run Pioneer Projects were necessitated to maintain and use the space without major government funds.²⁴ A growing number of urban gardens across Berlin distinguish themselves from traditional parks through gardeners appropriating the spaces under their vision in the absence of administrative control.²⁵ As seen in interviewee responses, the ability to appropriate the field space and create gardens according to users’ own visions (in contrast to the dominant aesthetics and functions of many city spaces), is highly valued. Rosol’s contention that community gardens can be seen as both critiques of, and viable alternatives to, state-run green spaces is visible on Tempelhof Field, with users repeatedly highlighting the importance of the space in being a unique alternative to other spaces in Berlin. 

While urban green spaces are more frequently integrated into city planning processes for their many benefits to citizen health , the many challenges to UGS maintenance and development can leave them low on priority lists for local governments.²⁶ Thus, in the context of large citizen involvement to appropriate these spaces, the emergence of Tempelhof as a newly vacated space was of high interest to many citizens already accustomed to being involved users of the voids in their city.

The volunteer processes occurring across Berlin make use of Tempelhof’s unique space to activate citizens of many backgrounds in collaborating to make their alternative ideals of city green space a reality. Building upon the legacy of civic engagement and volunteerism in the appropriation of urban green space, as well as Tempelhof’s uniquely large size has allowed many different groups to come together, making the space a unique meeting and contact zone for urban society.²⁷ Additionally, the site’s nature as an urban void allows people with many different visions for the space to imagine their alternatives to traditional city life played out across the field, where other parks or voids would otherwise lack space or proper environmental characteristics. 

The interpretation of void’s as perfect spots for social experimentation and alternative culture, dubbed the “civic initiative lens” by Ross Beveridge and colleagues, is visible in the realization of the various alternative cultural activities that occur across the Tempelhof Field.²⁸ The unique potential to function differently from other public spaces, places like Temelhof are more likely to involve diverse social groups.²⁹ The values of freedom, expression, diversity, and more that were expressed by interviewees in their visions for appropriating the Tempelhof void makes it an inclusive vision that is supportive of experimental communing and collaborating.³⁰

1. Brenck et al. “Gesellschaftliche Wertigkeit des Tempelhofer Feldes – Qualitäten erfassen und sichtbar machen.” Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH – UFZ, November 2021: 14. ↩︎
2. Kristin Hensel, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 11, 2023. ↩︎
3. Gesetz zum Erhalt des Tempelhofer Feldes (ThF-Gesetz), June 14, 2014: 190. ↩︎
4. Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt. Entwicklungs- und Pflegeplan Tempelhofer Feld. Berlin, Germany, May 2016: 4. ↩︎
5. Brenck et al. “Gesellschaftliche Wertigkeit des Tempelhofer Feldes – Qualitäten erfassen und sichtbar machen.” Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH – UFZ, November 2021: 57. ↩︎
6. Ibid., 57. ↩︎
7. Kabisch, Nadja, Michael Strohbach, Dagmar Haase, and Jakub Kronenberg. “Urban Green Space Availability in European Cities.” Ecological Indicators 70 (November 2016): 586. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.02.029. ↩︎
8. Kristin Hensel, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 11, 2023. ↩︎
9. Rosol, Marit. 2012. “Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green Space Production in Berlin.” Antipode 44 (1): 247. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00861.x. ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎
11. Brenck et al. “Gesellschaftliche Wertigkeit des Tempelhofer Feldes – Qualitäten erfassen und sichtbar machen.” Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH – UFZ, November 2021: 69. ↩︎
12. Gesetz zum Erhalt des Tempelhofer Feldes (ThF-Gesetz), June 14, 2014: 190. ↩︎
13. Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt. Entwicklungs- und Pflegeplan Tempelhofer Feld. Berlin, Germany, May 2016: 14. ↩︎
14. Kristin Hensel, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 11, 2023. ↩︎
15. Ibid. ↩︎
16. Juan Coka Arcos, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 16, 2023 and René Kreichauf, Microsoft Teams interview with Clara Feldman, December 5, 2023. ↩︎
17. Juan Coka Arcos, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 16, 2023. ↩︎
18. Kristin Hensel, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 11, 2023.  ↩︎
19. “Feld in Gefahr – Was Kann Ich Tun?” 100% Tempelhofer Feld, n.d. https://www.thf100.de/index/articles/feld-in-gefahr-was-kann-ich-tun.html. ↩︎
20. Rosol, Marit. “Public Participation in Post-Fordist Urban Green Space Governance: The Case of Community Gardens in Berlin.” International Journal of Urban & Regional Research 34, no. 3 (2010): 551. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00968.x. ↩︎
21. Kristin Hensel, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 11, 2023 and Juan Coka Arcos, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 16, 2023.  ↩︎
22. Rosol, Marit. “Public Participation in Post-Fordist Urban Green Space Governance: The Case of Community Gardens in Berlin.” International Journal of Urban & Regional Research 34, no. 3 (2010): 559. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00968.x. ↩︎
23. Rosol, Marit. “Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green Space Production in Berlin.” Antipode 44, no. 1 (2012): 239. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00861.x. ↩︎
24. Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt. Freiraum für die Stadt von Morgen. Tempelhofer Freiheit. 2013. https://use.metropolis.org/system/images/1038/original/tempelhofer_freiheit.pdf ↩︎
25. Rosol, Marit. “Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green Space Production in Berlin.” Antipode 44, no. 1 (2012): 240. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00861.x. ↩︎
26. Carpenter, M. “From ‘healthful exercise’ to ‘nature on prescription’: The Politics of Urban Green Spaces and Walking for Health.” Landscape and Urban Planning 118 (2013): 120–127. doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2013.02.009. ↩︎
27. Brenck et al. “Gesellschaftliche Wertigkeit des Tempelhofer Feldes – Qualitäten erfassen und sichtbar machen.” Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH – UFZ, November 2021: 24. ↩︎
28. Beveridge, Ross, Markus Kip, and Heike Oevermann. 2022. “From Wastelands to Waiting Lands: Retrieving Possibility from the Voids of Berlin.” City 26 (2/3): 295. doi:10.1080/13604813.2022.2040200. ↩︎
29. Hwang, S. W., & Lee, S. J. (2020). Unused, underused, and misused: an examination of theories on urban void spaces. Urban Research & Practice, 13(5), 547. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uvm.edu/10.1080/17535069.2019.1634140 ↩︎
30. Beveridge, Ross, Markus Kip, and Heike Oevermann. “From Wastelands to Waiting Lands: Retrieving Possibility from the Voids of Berlin.” City 26, no. 2/3 (2022): 295. doi:10.1080/13604813.2022.2040200. ↩︎