The back of these houses next to a railway line feature a wild mix of vegetables, flower garden and informal greenspace.
路線と家の間に、野菜や花壇や非公式緑地の面白いミックスがあります。
Lifecycle: the life of many plants starts at the same place where human artefacts end theirs.
生活環：人間の物の命が終わるところで、いろいろな植物の命が始まる。
線路の隣、植物がいろいろ。All kinds of plants thrive next to the railway tracks.
町の中でも裏道がたくさん。Hidden paths are just as common in cities.
壁の穴が空き地の窓。猫の入り口にもなっているでしょう。A hole in the wall becomes a vacant lot’s window - and maybe the cat’s entrance, too?
塀と古い機械が生い茂る草に覆われている。次は工場かな？
Fence and abandoned machine have been swallowed by plants. Will the old factory building be next?
こんな広い所できっとすばらしい探検ができる！
This wide space is just waiting to be explored!
Unwanteds share railway informal greenspace: “pest” cacti and graffiti in Brisbane.
Informal greenspace fascinates because it seems to pop up out of nowhere. A crack in the pavement, a silted water drain, a patch of bare ground: spontaneous vegetation will grow and over time change first its immediate environment, then the local urban landscape.
Gravel fills many vacant lots in a vain attempt to prevent plants from growing. But it’s just a matter of time: they slowly creep in from the edges, while the ecological history of the site emerges in the form of sprouting seeds.
Brownfields (such as abandoned factory grounds or municipal storage facilities) and their low maintenance levels are often large informal greenspaces. This site stores concrete pylons and sand bags for flood protection, but is also largely covered with grasses.
A nice example of how informal greenspace (here: street verge type) improves the urban visual environment by adding some green to the grey. The plants provide something organic to look at and break up the abstract geometric forms of walls and pavement.
A plant lover’s hobby is slowly eating up the former car parking space, but there’s plenty left to store the bicycle. You can also see a tiny gap informal greenspace with its characteristic oil tank in the bottom left.
Japanese buildings often feature gaps between houses, used for oil tanks and other storage. They are less maintained than the formal garden, so it’s easy to find lots of spontaneous vegetation.
A creeping plant escapes its garden to conquer neighbouring concrete walls: an example of structural informal greenspace.
