Designing Parks

Contents 

LEONARD GROSCH / CONSTANZE A. PETROW 

4 Parks for People 

ROBERT HAMMOND 

8 Parallels 

11 

LEONARD GROSCH 

Learning from Gleisdreieck 

12 Pictures in My Head: What Drives Me 

15 Park am Gleisdreieck: Design Strategies 

16 Location—A Need for History 

21 Framework—Stability and Orientation 

27 Program—Activity and Community 

32 Multilayered Coding—Everyday Usability 

and Self-Realization 

40 Stage and Stands—Great Cinema 

43 Scale—Security and Freedom 

46 Types of Nature—Wildness and Design 

49 Detail—Precision and Sensuousness 

53 Atmospheres—In the Middle of Things 

and Truly Outdoors 

59 Outlook: It Continues! 

65 

Park am Gleisdreieck 

Facets of an Open Space in Berlin

151 

CONSTANZE A. PETROW 

Designing Parks as Lively Places 

154 Landscape Architecture as Urbanist Discipline 

156 The Performative Approach 

159 A Look Back: Parks in Modern Times 

162 Designing Parks as Lively Places—Twelve Essentials 

163 1. Develop with Multiple Voices 

165 2. Design Complexly 

168 3. Program Intensively 

172 4. Position Cleverly 

174 5. Fulfill the Promise of Nature 

177 6. Tell Stories 

180 7. Find and Strengthen Images 

182 8. Interweave It with the City 

185 9. Facilitate Appropriation 

188 10. Be Welcoming to All 

190 11. Vary Degrees of Publicness 

192 12. Continue Enhancing Together 

194 Conclusion: Parks for the Open City 

FRIEDER BECKMANN/MEIKE HAKEN/ANTONIA MUSCHNER 

197 A Park Full of Atmospheres 

The Perception and Production of Atmospheres 

in the Park am Gleisdreieck 

214 Bibliography 

216 Imprint /Image credits

Parks for People 

“To this day creating a contemporary kind of park remains one of the most difficult 

tasks for our profession.” GÜNTHE VOGT 

Urban societies are currently undergoing profound change. They are 

becoming more diverse in terms of ethnicity and culture, as well as older. 

Urban milieus and lifestyles are becoming increasingly differentiated, and 

inequality between rich and poor is also growing. For good and relaxed coexistence, 

lively and integrative public open spaces are hence more important than 

ever. They represent an efficient and also comparatively inexpensive way to foster 

living together peacefully in cities. “Efficient” in this context means the ability to 

attract various segments of the population, facilitate diverse uses, and thus offer a 

lively location with a laid-back and safe atmosphere. It is first such a location that 

enables an essential moment in urban life to occur: encounters between strangers. 

In many landscape architecture projects of the last two decades—and in particular 

those that developed from competitions—questions about aesthetic style 

and the goal of originality of form were raised before questions about potential 

utilization possibilities and the quality of spending time at the location. Images 

suitable for publication were given precedence over how a location performed as a 

public space. Appropriateness for everyday life was subordinated to suitability for 

events. Consequently, the market was given priority over the interests of the public—both 

the market of attention within the field1 as well as the economic exploitation 

of urban spaces as part of business-oriented urban development policies. In 

such cases, landscape architects did not only pursue their own concepts of value; 

they also reacted to the developers’ desires. As a result, however, not only the 

social and psychological but also the political aspects of urban open spaces—their 

ability to contribute to integration in society, social stability, and a vibrant public 

life—were often given short shrift. 

Some years ago, Wulf Tessin initiated an important debate on the aesthetic 

preferences of park users, preferences that conflict with many contemporary 

designs.2 The controversy that followed obscured the political explosiveness of a 

landscape architecture that satisfies itself and is understood by designers above 

1 See Franck, Ökonomie der Aufmerksamkeit. Ein Entwurf; 2 Tessin, Ästhetik des Angenehmen. Städtische Freiräume 

zwischen professioneller Ästhetik und Laiengeschmack 

4 

Designing Parks

all as an aesthetic object. Public spaces that are not designed explicitly with the 

goal of attracting people and being able to be used intensively in day-to-day life 

often remain bleak and empty—and hence do not do full justice to their possibilities 

as urban meeting places. Since the terrain of design in German landscape 

architecture was won back in the nineteen-nineties and the ecological aspects of 

open spaces have come to receive new attention as part of society’s growing perception 

of climate change since the naughts, it is now once again necessary to 

focus on the social role of landscape architecture. 

For this reason, this book does not address questions of aesthetics first and 

foremost but rather the social performance of open spaces. How is it possible to 

succeed in making a park or square “buzz”? How is it possible to get as many people 

as possible to visit it because it promises relaxation, variety, and surprises and 

because it celebrates the grandness of life in the city? Through seeking to answer 

these questions, in a certain sense, this book supplements the book Open(ing) 

Spaces: Design as Landscape Architecture, published in 2003. That publication 

communicates to students the tools for spatial design in landscape architecture— 

it shows how one designs spaces. But how does one create places? 

We are therefore interested in the possibilities for making open spaces stages 

for urban life—stages that are used intensively and have meaning for people. We 

call this a “performative approach.” Addressing the human scale and creating 

urban spaces filled with life, as Jan Gehl propagates for architecture and urban 

development,3 are by no means things that happen automatically in landscape 

architecture, either. “If your goal is to create a place … a design will not be enough,” 

the Project for Public Spaces notes.4 

Landscape architecture can be more than conceptually original and at the 

height of its time in terms of form. To be so, design must moreover comprise both 

a strong aesthetic, spatial concept and a sophisticated idea of a location as a social 

space: an idea of what uses a design facilitates, what atmospheres it allows to 

arise, and what settings for encounters and shared experiences it offers. What is 

therefore concerned are correlations between form and use, program and liveliness, 

design gesture and the popularity of a location, between identification and 

possibilities to participate. And, naturally, what is always involved is the question 

of how it is possible to succeed in making people feel happy in open spaces. This 

requirement should also be accompanied by the awareness that people interpret 

not only the messages of an overall design but also the subtext of materials and 

3 Gehl, Cities for People; 4 www.pps.org, accessed July 23, 2015 

Parks for People 

5

Parallels 

Greeting by OBET HAMMOND, Initiator of the High Line Park in New York 

The parallels between the High Line and the Park am Gleisdreieck are striking, 

from the use for railway transport and subsequent decline, followed 

by grassroots campaigns to save the spaces, and finally to the integration 

of planned and wild space for the public to enjoy. Both were opened in sections, 

slowly unveiling themselves to the public after taking nearly a decade from concept 

to realization. Both were used for freight and both fell into disrepair due to shifting 

economies, and, in Gleisdreieck’s case, war and a divided city. Since leaving their 

railway life behind them, they have found new life: instead of providing goods, they 

physically connect neighborhoods in their landscape. And within that landscape 

they connect locals. 

I find the decades-long activism work performed by Berlin residents to save 

and rehabilitate Gleisdreieck inspiring. From my own experience, I know how 

daunting projects of this scale can be. When I attended my first community board 

meeting in 1999, I expected to find such a group working to save the High Line. 

I was wrong: people wanted to tear it down. It was there that I met Joshua David 

and, shortly after this chance meeting, we founded Friends of the High Line, a nonprofit 

to help save the High Line. Knowing that in order to be successful and save 

the High Line from demolition, we had to engage the community. Neither he nor 

I had a budget or a background in activism or city planning, so we relied on feedback 

from the community to find out what it wanted out of the space. 

When we first began exploring this abandoned rail line, we discovered a 

secret garden, a wild space. Similarly, after years of neglect, the Park am Gleisdreieck 

had become rich with nature. What is unique about these modern urban 

parks it that they are really built by the community and take everyone’s need for 

public space into consideration. The community asked and fought for these green 

spaces. When I think of parks in European cities, I think of manicured gardens dedicated 

centuries ago to celebrate families like Hapsburgs or the Medicis. These are 

gorgeous spaces, but they are disconnected from the experience of living in a city, 

from those experiences that make urban life interesting. These jewel-box parks 

8 


are also disconnected from their city’s surroundings; sitting in one you know you 

are in a park, but you do not know that you are in a magnificent place like Berlin or 

New York. These new parks give you a new vantage point for connecting with and 

observing your city. 

I really respond to the connection between the designed environment and 

the non-designed environment of Gleisdreieck. One of the things Joshua David and 

I worried about when we were planning and developing the High Line was destroying 

this wildness that we so dearly loved; the planners of Gleisdreieck call it the 

“Gleiswildnis,” or rail wilderness, a perfect phrase to describe the essence of these 

spaces. One of the beautiful things about the Park am Gleisdreieck is that, in some 

parts, you feel as though you are discovering something that no one else has seen 

before. 

Both of these projects gave the designers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: 

a chance to innovate a large expanse of an already well-developed city. These two 

parks were both forgotten-about spaces associated with urban blight, but through 

community action and innovative design, these relics are now destinations, desirable 

places to be in and around. Woven into the fabric of the landscape and into 

the lives of the citizens. 

Parallels 

9

Learning 

from 

Gleisdreieck 

LEONARD GROSCH

Location 

A Need for History 

Carefully analyzing the characteristics of a location and evaluating and interpreting 

them remains the basis for every landscape architecture design. The 

qualities of a location are unique. They already exist. At a time of increasing 

global alignment, it is important to design distinct locations through intensifying 

their specific qualities. At the same time, it is necessary to conserve 

resources and to derive the basic spatial and functional framework from the 

location. Building history further in such a way increases many people’s acceptance: 

Such open spaces are taken as a matter of course. Through appreciating 

the legacy of past times, a prudent and reflected examination of a location 

develops. It is about the desire to find meaning in locations. Arbitrariness is 

rejected. Last but not least, it is also simpler for landscape architects: Why 

devise something that is not intrinsic to the location when careful observation 

of the location is able to provide the spatial and thematic concept? 

What therefore does location mean? In my understanding, a location is made up of 

spatial qualities, of the concrete, of the structural legacies left behind by people 

of past eras, of an atmosphere that provides information about what a location 

needs, what would be suitable and what would be detrimental there, of technical 

constraints, and all this: at a particular point in time. 

Space 

For me, the first step consists of perceiving the qualities in terms of substance of 

the existing space and describing the decisive landscape elements that characterize 

it. What takes place at the same time (or at least can barely be consciously 

separated from this) is an assessment and interpretation. 

When we entered the site of the former Anhalter freight yard, walked onto 

the raised railway area, and left the framing, dense woodland that had established 

itself there behind us, we were impressed by the vastness of the clearing that 

16 


LAWN 

MEADOWS 

RUDERAL FOREST 

ALLOTMENT GARDENS 

FRAGMENTS 

RESCUE AREA 

Westpark 

U1 

Elevated tracks 

viaduct 

WOODLAND FRAME 

CLEARING 

Mouth of the 

tunnel 

Delivery road 

U2 

Museum train 

Ostpark 

ALLOTMENT 

GARDENS 

Signal box 

Tracks and 

buffer stops 

Wall 


CLEARING 

PLATEAU 

Freight car 

scales 

PLATEAU 

Bunker 

Signal box 

EXPRESS TRAIN 

Bridges over 

Yorckstrasse 


Signal box 

Bottleneck Park 

17

Stage and Stands 

Great Cinema 

A park should bring people together. It should give rise to a feeling of social 

closeness and a shared identity. Creating a relaxed atmosphere can contribute 

to mitigating social tensions or even prevent them from arising in the first 

place. To achieve this, it is firstly necessary to encourage communication in 

a targeted manner and, secondly, to produce a feeling of togetherness. How 

can this be realized using the means of landscape architecture? 

The stages-and-stands principle orchestrates the coming together of people who 

would otherwise never take note of each other. People should do things and want 

to do things in the park: to enjoy life and show off, to let others share in their abilities 

and hobbies. For this, there needs to be someone who does something and 

someone who watches, and perhaps even marvels. This results in interaction and 

communication. 

In both halves of the Park am Gleisdreieck, there are formal stages and 

stands that are immediately recognizable as such: the stands already described 

at the mouth of the tunnel, the small stands by the dance area, and the Stelcon 

stands that we had layered together using the heavy-duty slabs with steel frames 

that were found on-site. The orientation is very important: One faces to the west, 

which is why it is used particularly in the late afternoon and evening for sitting, 

sprawling, and drinking wine; the other is oriented toward the south and is much 

frequented for sunbathing, picnicking, and reading. All three stands have surfaces 

extending in front of them like stages: The big stands at the mouth of the tunnel 

have a sandy area and the large meadow, the small stands by the dance area have 

sanded asphalt, and the Stelcon stands a surface of asphalt as well. 

I have observed in hindsight that some of the stage areas apparently still 

have too little animation quality to attract interesting activities. For these areas, 

events curated by a sponsor or citizens groups would be desirable for bringing 

smaller, everyday sports or music events onto the stage. Bringing them alive with 

temporary installations or gastronomy would also be conceivable. Both would 

40 


FORMAL STANDS 

FORMAL STAGE 

INFORMAL STANDS 

INFORMAL STAGE 

The stages and stands are 

also part of the program 

NEST 

with fence for sitting 

PLAY TOPOGRAPHY 

with beam benches 

WOODEN SHACK 

with stands 

LARGE STANDS 

with city beach 

PLATFORM 

CLEARING 

with beams for sitting 

SMALL STANDS 

with dancing area 

STELCON STANDS 

with crossing area 

SKATER BOWL 

CHILDREN'S ROOM 

with fence for sitting 

CLEARING 

with beam benches 

FOREST OF POLES 

with edge for sitting 

YORCKSTRASSE ENTRANCES 

with COR-TEN steel steps 

STREETBALL AT THE 

MONUMENTSTRASSE BRIDGE 

41

Location 

1 Gleisdreieck is located in the 

heart of Berlin near Potsdamer 

Platz. This site was once home to 

freight yards. After World War II, 

it lay fallow, and many parts 

became overgrown. Two U-Bahn 

viaducts cross the site. A railway 

line runs through the middle of 

it in a north-south direction and 

therefore represents a strong 

spatial division. 

66 

1

25 An intensive feeling of wildness 

in the city is provided above 

all in the Flaschenhalspark. 

Relicts of the railway use help 

give this location its special aura. 

Mulch paths on a former track 

bed lead through this part of the 

park. They make it possible to 

experience it in a calm way and 

are well suited for jogging. 

88 

25

26 

26 – 28 In addition to the 

landscape architecture design 

and the areas that have been 

left wild, the Park am Gleis - 

dreieck also faci litates a lively 

garden culture. In the intercultural 

garden “Rosenduft,” 

women migrants garden together 

and grow the fruits and vegetables 

with which they are familiar. 

The allotment gardens integrated 

into the park incorporate yet 

another plant world as well as 

different “socio-natures.” 

90

27 

91 

28

42

42 The play topography on 

the green area in the Westpark 

represents an intensively used 

area. The surfacing of soft rubber 

granulate facilitates all kinds of 

locomotion and attracts people 

of various ages, who share this 

location as if a matter of course. 

105

Use 

Openness 

51 Besides specific and ambiguous 

use offerings, there also have 

to be large, use-open areas in a 

park. The broad clearings in both 

the Ostpark and Westpark are 

open to activities of all kinds. 

116 

51

Appropriation 

57 Several uses in the Park am 

Gleisdreieck were negotiated by 

citizens, including the Café Eule. 

Due to its alternative charm, 

the fact that it was realized with 

limited means, and its lovingly 

prepared small dishes and beverages, 

it stands out as a special 

location in the park. 

124 

57

“Activity in human life is the greatest attraction in cities.” 

JAN GEHL, LAS GEMZØE 

Parks are places of transformation. Gleisdreieck was once a “landscape of 

iron and steel,” a “magnificent temple of technology open to the air.”1 This is 

how Joseph Roth feted the location in 1924. Created during the peak phase 

of industrialization in Berlin, Gleisdreieck accommodated the Potsdamer and 

Anhalter freight yard. Decades of relentless activity were followed after World War 

II by decades during which the site lay dormant and forgotten. The iron and steel 

landscape became a wilderness. At the beginning of the new millennium, Gleisdreieck 

underwent a fundamental new transformation—into a place for leisure, 

recreation, and interactions with nature. 

It is not only the places where parks are created that change. Parks themselves 

are also changing and with them the ideas of what constitutes good park 

design. The Park am Gleisdreieck is a milestone in the development of parks in 

recent decades. It has not only become a destination park, hence an open space 

that draws more people than live in its surroundings. It also brings together a wide 

range of ideas that have already been successfully tested elsewhere. The history 

of its creation, its design, and the practice of further developing it have turned the 

wheel of what once existed a bit further. 

Based on the example of the Park am Gleisdreieck and with cross-references 

to many other projects of the past decades, in this text I will discuss current trends 

in the design and governance of parks as large, green open spaces. The focus is on 

the design by the Atelier Loidl with its ability to establish uses that are as diverse as 

possible and hence create a lively, popular location. At the same time, an extensive 

civic influence is visible in the Park am Gleisdreieck. This is reflected in the park’s 

range of offerings and atmospheres and therefore also in its role as an open space 

in the city. The park is a product of exemplary landscape-architectural staging, collective 

creativity, and a culture of negotiating diverse interests in urban open space. 

This interplay allows for conclusions on designing parks. How can they be 

designed as places that facilitate a broad spectrum of uses and are explicitly 

oriented toward attracting many people—rather than being just formally and 

aestheti cally innovative? How, therefore, can the “boon of life,” as Jane Jacobs 

called it,2 be influenced by design? And how can collaborative participation and 

possibilities for appropriation become integral components of urban parks? 

1 Roth, “Affirmation of the Triangular Railway Junction,” 106; 2 Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 89 

152 


My inferences on designing parks incorporate empirically verified knowledge 

and the teachings of great urbanists on the conditions for vibrant urban spaces. 

They are nevertheless necessarily normative: they pursue value concepts and 

embody a particular attitude towards the city. In this, they in part clearly differentiate 

themselves from park designs of the nineteen-nineties and the naughts. 

In a first step, I would like to characterize this attitude in more detail. In the 

second step, I outline the design approach that develops as a result. As a third step, 

I situ ate the type of open space that this yields—the citizens’ park of the twentyfirst 

century—within the development of parks in the modern era and provide a 

summary of its significant innovations. The fourth and most in-depth section contains 

the practical application: concrete recommendations for designing lively 

parks. 


153

4 

Position 

Cleverly 

Another feature of good park design is that the offerings, equipment, and furnishing 

elements relate to one another. They are then used more frequently than those 

that are positioned on their own.67 Arranging use offerings close to each other can 

initiate what William H. Whyte called triangulation: Proximity provides the social 

glue that makes it possible for strangers to approach each other. In other words: 

Because many things are happening at the same time, opportunities for chatting 

arise.68 The park becomes more convivial. 

At Gleisdreieck it is possible to observe this communicative effect well at the 

skater bowl → pic. 110. A café and restrooms are located directly opposite this sports 

area. A main path leads past it, and the skaters’ tricks invite passersby to remain 

standing and watch. Offerings are also concentrated at the entrance at Hornstrasse 

in the Ostpark: Steps and a ramp lead from the street level up to the park plateau. 

This means that new people continuously enter the scene. Table tennis is played on 

the one side, while a kiosk and the Stangenwald (forest of poles) playground form 

a point of contact on the other → pic. 111. Two main paths intersect here. The meadow 

next to them is open for all kinds of activities. Two swings able to carry the weight 

of adults are also provided. 

The design of the Park am Gleisdreieck corresponds to the five ground rules 

for lively spaces formulated by Jan Gehl: assemble rather than disperse, inte- 

110 111 

67 See The Project for Public Spaces, www.pps.org; 68 Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, 94 

172 


112 113 

grate rather than segregate, invite rather than repel, open up rather than close in, 

increase rather than reduce69. 

It is possible to study the effect of uniform distribution without highlights 

or points of intersection on a small area in the ULAP Park → pic. 112 nearby the Berlin 

main train station. Cuboid seats are arranged there in a grid under a canopy of 

trees—just so far away from each other that each person sits on his or her own. 

There are no backrests and nowhere in the park where more than sitting in isolation 

can occur. 

Invalidenpark → pic. 113 in Berlin also offers a prime example of the central 

problem of uniform distribution. Rather than allowing a feeling of being together 

in the park to arise, the spatial arrangement isolates the users. A large pool of 

water—too big for the few visitors not to become lost—occupies the center of the 

newer part of the park. The stone ramp that rises up in it seems monumental and 

prevents eye contact from one side of the pool to the other. In the winter, the pool 

is empty, the center of the park therefore a dead spot. The benches lined up along 

Invalidenstrasse stand separated from each other, their arrangement primarily 

arising from aesthetic motivations. 

For designing parks, this means arranging the offerings in such a way 

that they are related to one another. This results in crystallization and contact 

points at which several things occur simultaneously. People meet each 

other. This creates locations in the park that are particularly lively and interesting 

and therefore draw many users. As a designer, one should envision 

such hotspots in the park. 

69 Gehl, Cities for People, 233 


173

1 

Be Welcoming 

to All 

Appropriated spaces draw people to the park who would not use it otherwise.110 

Their charm of the alternative, the self-organized, and the realized with limited 

means—these spaces’ shabby chic—has an effect of lowering thresholds. Landscape 

architecture can also get this message across: through using simple materials, 

being functional, working with what is there, and offering niches—rather 

than putting visitors on open display alone. How such a relaxed design affects the 

atmos phere of a park can be experienced in Mainuferpark → pic. 136, 137 in Frankfurt.111 

Expensive materials, exotic plants, and “consistent over-detailing,”112 in contrast, 

signal exclusiveness. What developed is a design strategy that Wulf Tessin 

describes as “prevention architecture,” which deliberately influences the type of 

use and the spectrum of visitors by means of subtle or obvious control mechanisms.113 

It is also possible to steer activities that require space such as skating 

using such means. 

When a park is lively, this does not therefore automatically mean that everyone 

feels welcome. Young people may perceive designs, materials, and atmospheres 

quite differently than adults. Such things also look quite different from a 

middle-class perspective than from a position on the margins of society. It is not 

only public character and physical accessibility that regulate access to parks but 

also a welcoming gesture, particularly with respect to underprivileged population 

136 137 

110 On community gardens, see Francis, “Some Different Meanings Attached to a City Park and Community Gardens.”; 

111 See Petrow, “Hidden Meanings, Obvious Messages: Landscape Architecture as a Reflection of a City’s Self-Conception 

and Image Strategy.”; 112 Galmar, “Der Geist Kataloniens in Hamburg,” with reference to the Magellan Terraces in 

HafenCity in Hamburg; 113 See Tessin, “Präventionsarchitektur. Vom gestalterischen Umgang mit unsicheren Milieus.” 

188 


138 139 

groups. “People need to feel that a public park is for them.”114 At the same time, 

no one group should dominate a public space → pic. 138. A large number of female 

visitors is a good indicator that that park is a safe, socially well balanced location. 

“If a plaza has a markedly lower than average proportion of women, something is 

wrong,”115 noted William H. Whyte. 

The Park am Gleisdreieck shows a good balance between careful detailing 

and robustness → pic. 139. There could still be more niches where people can feel 

comfort able and shielded. The design could also respond to a greater extent to the 

needs of older individuals. Short routes, comfortable benches, and, indeed, also 

flowers make parks attractive for them.116 

For designing parks, this means consciously avoiding signals of exclusion. 

Rather than preventive design strategies, the space as a whole should 

be structured in such a way that it meets different needs. If the park is considered 

from the perspective of women and girls, children and young people, the 

elderly, people with disabilities, and people with limited means, then everyone 

else benefits. The park then namely conveys security, is easily accessible, 

and offers comfortable options for sitting, restrooms, many possibilities for 

participating in what is going on, and affordable food. It is a relaxed place 

that signals to every individual that they are welcome. 

114 Low, Taplin, and Scheld, The Politics of Public Space, 199; 115 Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, 18; 

116 On the preferences of older individuals in parks, see Gröning et al., “Gebrauchswert und Gestalt von Parks.” 


189

Visiting a park is a commonplace event in the day-to-day life of many people. 

It is specifically this everyday quality that makes it particularly attractive 

for sociological studies, since it provides a possibility to take a closer look at 

the link between an individual, a quite banal-seeming action, and its social 

context. In this sense, a study of what goes on in a park and the complex 

inter actions that take place there is a good opportunity to shed more light on 

the relationship between human action and architecturally designed space. 

Within the framework of an empirical study, we asked how the design of a park 

might be interwoven with the subjective experience of its visitors. The Park am 

Gleisdreieck seems almost ideal as an example because here the interplay between 

architecture, its use and appropriation is still developing. In the course of the study, 

perceiving, or perhaps better, experiencing an atmosphere proved to be a meaningful, 

if often unnoticed, basic practice of a visit to a park. The apparently large 

role that atmospheres play in the experience of visiting a park led us to the idea of 

focusing our work on the way in which atmospheres are produced. 

To investigate the complex bases of atmospheres, we looked at two things: 

the ideas behind the atmosphere of the Park am Gleisdreieck that were developed 

in the course of planning and the atmospheres that park visitors actually experience. 

We were interested in the possibilities for influencing the activities of actors 

by means of a landscape architectural design. When assessing our empirical material, 

we crisscrossed statements by the main planner and the intentions of the 

design with the effect of this design that visitors perceive. What interested us as 

sociologists was what concretely ensures that people experience park spaces in a 

specific way, which factors influence how a space is experienced, and how these 

factors take effect. On the whole, with reference to the research that underlies 

this contribution, we asked how atmospheres are produced in the Park am Gleisdreieck.1 

1 The institutional framework of our one-year work was a teaching/research project at the TU Berlin. Under the guidance 

of Prof. Martina Löw and Dr. Gunter Weidenhaus, what was examined was how the constitution of spaces and the 

meaning ascribed to these spaces changed over the course of time. 

198 


How Does One 

Examine a Park? 

The goal was not to be able to arrive at generalizable statements about 

particular circumstances but rather to examine the specific practices and 

interactions that are relevant to people’s “affective involvement”2 in a specific 

environment. For this reason, we decided on a study using methods for qualitative 

social research. They make it possible, even with a relatively limited number 

of cases, to reconstruct the construction and ascription of meaning that underlie 

people’s actions and that are expressed in their actions. We inquired into the situative 

practices of the uses that take place in the park in the sense of an ethnomethodological 

research program. 

To approach the subject, we first conducted three expert interviews: with 

Leonard Grosch, the main planner of the park; employees of the green space 

administration of another Bezirksamt (district administration); and a lecturer on 

open space planning at the Technical University Berlin. We also talked with sixteen 

park visitors between the ages of approximately eighteen to sixty-five on-site and 

conducted five- to fifteen-minute guided interviews with them. The questions were 

focused on people’s actions in the park, their opinions, and their favorite places. 

Sociodemographic features were not ascertained in the process. 

The fact that weather plays a role in how the park is perceived became clear 

in the additional, guided in-depth interviews.3 For them, a researcher took one 

man and one woman through the Park am Gleisdreieck in the fall and winter of 2014 

and asked them about their impressions. Both interviews have a length of around 

one hour. In addition, participatory observations and self-observations were also 

ascertained.4 The survey can therefore be subsumed in terms of method5 under the 

concept of focused ethnography. Altogether, data collection extended over several 

weeks; the corpus of data it provided comprises 250 pages. 

An explorative empirical study can, however, also not dispense with theoretical 

foundations. In order to retain a certain candor during the work in the park, 

we used various sociological approaches as heuristics. Heuristics allow for assumptions 

that—although they are based on theories—do not claim to concretely reflect 

2 Böhme Architektur und Atmosphäre, 26; 3 Breidenstein et al., Ethnografie, 80–85; 4 On the mix of methods, see 

Breiden stein et al., Ethnografie, 71–80; 5 See Knoblauch, “Fokussierte Ethnographie : Soziologie, Ethnologie und die 

neue Welle der Ethnographie.” 

A Park Full of Atmospheres 

199

LEONARD GROSCH is a landscape architect. He grew up in Munich, 

completed his training as a perennial plant gardener there, and 

then studied at the TU Dresden, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine 

Arts in Copenhagen, and the TU Berlin. He has been managing the 

competition department at Atelier Loidl since 2003, and been a 

partner in Atelier Loidl since 2007. With his team, he has won numerous 

big competitions and realized the projects that developed from 

them. The Park am Gleisdreieck was awarded the Deutscher Landschaftsarchitekturpreis 

(German Landscape Architecture Prize) in 

2015. Leonard Grosch lives in Berlin. 

DR. CONSTANZE A. PETROW is a landscape architect. She grew up in 

Berlin, studied at the TU Berlin, worked in various planning offices, 

and did her doctorate at the Leibniz University in Hannover. In addition 

to her extensive publishing activities and her research, which is 

dedicated to the contemporary work of landscape architecture and 

its interplay with social developments, she has also been teaching 

design since 2001, first at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, as a guest 

lecturer at the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center (Virginia 

Tech) in Washington D.C., and since 2009 in the department of 

design and open space planning at the TU Darmstadt. Constanze A. 

Petrow lives in Frankfurt am Main.

Designing Parks

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