The Garden of the XXI Century in Hönggerberg

In Gilles Clément’s book ‹A Brief History of the Garden›, there is a story about the people of Australia’s Top End and the absence of gardens there. More than a hundred years ago, before living alongside white settlers, the residents of the Top End did not cultivate the land. Even today, although they live in houses resembling those of the settlers, they do not create gardens. Seeking to understand this, Clément found an answer in their poetry:

Humans once dreamed:
of sharing in the morning birdsong,
the emu’s dance,
the red ochre of the setting sun.
And they dreamed too
of the laughter of children.

Then humans understood their dreams
and continued dreaming—
of all that had come before.

They dreamed of still and deep waters,
of waves and wet sands,
of rocks and burning sun,
of wind and open sky,
of trees and night skies,
of plains draped in golden grasses.

And so, through dreams, humans came to know
that all creatures of creation
were kindred spirits—
and that they must protect their dreams.

They dreamed, too,
as though they wished to whisper this secret
to the child yet unborn.

At last the Great Spirit knew
that the secret of the dream was whole.
And the Spirit of Life, weary from dreaming
the dream of creation itself,
descended into the earth for rest.

So it is now
that whenever the spirits of creation grow tired,
they descend into the earth
to meet the Spirit of Life.
And thus the earth is sacred,
and humans must be its guardians.

(From an Aboriginal tale, translated from the book ‹A Brief History of the Garden› by Gilles Clément)

Clément, through the eyes of the Top End’s people, asks: with what heart could one open and scar the ground where «all the spirits of creation» descend to rest? In their world, there are no gardens, but there is the earth. As a landscape architect, I cannot help but wonder—amid daily reports of catastrophe and a planet slowly spinning toward extinction—what purpose do gardens serve? Are we, as landscape architects and gardeners, truly contributing to making the world a better place? In this century, can gardens become something beyond power, ornament, and amusement?

A Generational Experiment in Growing Relations
At ETH Zurich, where I am currently pursuing my master’s in landscape architecture there is the Chair of Being Alive, led by Professor Teresa Galí-Izard. Here, a long-term project called The Garden of the XXI Century unfolds across several countries – Spain, Chile, Switzerland, and more. In this project, the garden is not merely regarded as an object of visual object to admire. It is a collective design process, where diverse actors interpret the existing dynamics of a site and work together to foster new forms of coexistence – between humans and other living beings.

For example, the garden in Senan, Spain, seeks to restore soils that have been degraded since the industrialization and globalization of agriculture in the 1950s. ETH landscape architects, local landowners, and other experts collaborate, integrating maintenance into the design process. In partnership with Innova Horse Care, horses that have been mistreated or neglected are brought to the site. Their grazing, feeding, and even manure become central to soil restoration and the recovery of biodiversity. Designers regulate grazing through a fencing system, ensuring that it is neither excessive nor insufficient. With close monitoring, the design becomes an evolving system rather than a fixed framework.

Horses grazing in the garden at Senan, Spain. Rotational grazing plays a key role in restoring the site’s depleted soil. 22 April 2025. ©Young Jae, Shin

Since the spring semester of 2025, I have been working as a gardener in one of the Garden of the XXI Century: the Hönggerberg Garden. At just 1,000 m², it is the smallest of the XXI Century gardens, located behind the HIT building on ETH’s Hönggerberg campus. At first glance, it looks like a typical patch of urban greenery, but years of heavy machinery have left the soil compacted. Since joining the network in 2023, this site has become a living laboratory. Students and staff experiment with regenerative practices to restore urban soils and weave networks between people and nature inside and outside the campus. Simple rules guide our work: avoid soil within two meters of tree crowns and do not install permanent structures. Within these boundaries, students are free to explore and test their own interventions.

The garden is closely linked to the course ‹Regenerative Methods for Exhausted Landscapes›, taught by Stefan Breit and Teresa Galí-Izard since 2023 to second-semester master’s students. Before proposing interventions, students spend the first weeks reading the site—examining and drawing soil, plants, and vegetation communities. Interventions are often developed collectively, through discussion and negotiation. When the team of students and teaching staffs first arrived the garden last spring, there were no clear paths across the garden. Visitors wandered freely, compacting the soil further. Recognizing this, the team agreed that paths were needed. Using simple tools—A-frame, sticks, string—students marked slopes of 10% and 15%, cut the grass, and spread hay so that footsteps would leave less damage. As the hay decomposed or grasses grew back, the team continued cutting and laying fresh hay to maintain the path. 

Drawing the soil of the garden using Soil Language developed by Chair of Being Alive. ©Young Jae Shin

Students marking contour lines in the garden with an A-frame. 13 March 2025. ©Young Jae, Shin

Aerial view of the garden taken by drone, with the mown paths standing out clearly. 13 August 2025. ©Chair of Being Alive

In this way, the garden takes shape through processes very different from conventional landscape projects. There is no masterplan rolled out in phases of analysis, design, construction, and then maintenance. Instead, analysis, intervention, and maintenance overlap and repeat, each influencing the other. The authority of the designer is distributed across many actors; landscapes are not authored by a single decision but emerge through collective practice. The garden welcomes professionals from other disciplines and more-than-human participants, expanding ecological and social networks. New plants, for example, are not bought but introduced through relationships, chance meetings, or local foraging, thereby diversifying the garden’s web of connections. Rather than importing resources to fix problems all at once, interventions carefully tweak existing dynamics of living things, allowing the garden to evolve slowly and non-destructively. For example, Sampurna Pattanaik, a master’s student in landscape architecture, transplanted seedlings that had sprouted from a shrub at the garden’s edge to shadier spots inside. These seedlings, having germinated amid dense thickets, faced excessive competition and had little chance of growing into large trees. Through the simple act of relocating them—species such as Cornus mas and Euonymus europaeus, which form the structure of forest understories or edges—Sampurna sought to add a new layer to the garden.

Unlike other campus green spaces, which are mown very short more than twice a year, this garden is selectively mown, allowing a wide variety of insects to thrive. The difference is striking between the garden interior, where grasses remain tall (right side of the photo), and the outer area, which has already been cut (left side). 19 June 2025. ©Young Jae, Shin

The most distinctive plant in the garden is Dipsacus fullonum. Thanks to selective mowing, this striking species flourishes here, providing food for insects during the summer. In the background, the contrast is clear between the outer area, recently mown, and the inner garden, where Dipsacus fullonum and other wildflowers are thriving. 27 August 2025. ©Young Jae, Shin 

Since last spring, as a teaching assistant for the course and gardener, I began to build my own relationship with this place. I noticed that the garden sits between two wooded hills – Käferberg and Hönggerberg – suggesting a potential role as an ecological stepping stone. Yet forests are rare on campus; trees are neatly managed, undergrowth is absent, and animals have few safe places to hide. What if this garden could become a forest – a refuge for creatures moving between the two hills? 

The garden is situated on the Hönggerberg campus, which lies between two wooded hills. The campus, however, is largely devoid of forest-like vegetation. ©Young Jae, Shin

The question became: where could we find trees to grow this forest? Nearby, I discovered the oldest oak on campus, a Quercus robur over a century old. Every autumn, it produces an abundance of acorns. In a forest, they would feed countless creatures, but here, in the middle of the university grounds, many lie wasted. Even when they germinate, the relentless act of mowing prevent them from maturing into trees. In January, I found acorns scattered and sprouting beneath this oak. I imagined some of them growing in our garden. Not all would survive—but even the act of germination, as seedlings drive taproots deep into compacted ground, would improve air and water transportation in the soil. Even if the tree died, its roots would decompose into organic matter, enriching the soil.

So, with fellow students, we gathered acorns in March. Some were sown directly into the garden soil; others were planted in pots and later transplanted once their shoots reached about 15 cm. The acorns sown directly into the soil grew more slowly but proved healthier than the transplanted ones. This process will be repeated every year, autumn and spring. Like jays and squirrels, students will carry acorns across the campus, performing the role of animals who might otherwise not reach this site. 

Our interventions are continuously improved and adapted through monitoring. As summer approached, more seedlings began to wither under the strong sun. In response, Inés Plasencia and Sampurna Pattanaik, master’s students in landscape architecture at ETH, built shading structures to protect the young trees. Made from branches gathered in the nearby forest and straw commonly found in the garden, these structures were placed on the southern side of the seedlings to shield their tender leaves from the harsh sunlight. At present, selective mowing practices also support this effort: grasses around the seedlings are left uncut, allowing their tall leaves to provide natural shade.

Our forest does not depend on oaks alone. In April, Marco, our dear friend told us about an old beech tree he loved, soon to be felled due to campus development. Beneath it, seedlings had already sprouted. We transplanted some of these to our garden so that the life of the tree can continue here. This coming autumn, we plan to collect and sow its seeds as well. In this way, the young web of relationships in the garden grows slowly, like mycelium spreading underground.

Acorns planted in pots reached a height of 15 cm within two weeks, whereas those sown directly in the ground often required more than three months before any shoots emerged. To date, the seedlings from direct sowing show considerably healthier growth compared to the transplanted ones. 24 March 2025. ©Young Jae, Shin

While acorns sown directly into the ground germinate later, they exhibit stronger resilience against drought and fungal pathogens. At site Q4, one individual took as long as four months to emerge (visible at the lower center of the photograph). 9 July 2025. ©Young Jae, Shin

Drawing of shade structure for seedlings. ©Sampurna Pattanaik

Workshop for collecting seeds across the campus in alignment with the plants’ fruiting periods and transferring them to the garden. Students act as seed vectors, becoming part of the garden’s ecological network. ©Young Jae, Shin

Observing and Recording
Looking at this garden, I sometimes think of an old classroom. Walls with tape still clinging to them, desks etched with box cutter marks, labels and stickers layered and removed, windows scribbled on with words. A place dense with arguments, reconciliations, and questions—hundreds of dramas folded into its layers. Sitting at my desk as a teenager, I felt the weight of generations of students whose marks, indecipherable yet present, would continue accumulating long after me.

When I first visited the garden in autumn 2024, I could see the traces of past students scattered like encrypted messages. Over the spring of 2025, my generation left our own marks as well. The garden, I realized, is like that old classroom: a place where traces accumulate, over and over again. I wanted those traces to be remembered before they weathered away, so that future students might find inspiration and connection in the history that preceded them.

That is why I record everything here in detail. With a 5x5 meter site grid, I lay tracing paper over map of the garden and draw what I observe: the condition of young trees, the appearance of insects, even the smallest, trivial happenings. I take photographs and compile them with short texts into booklets. These records may someday help trace the causes of change – linking yesterday’s events with today’s, and today’s with tomorrow’s tasks. 

Notes and observations of the garden, mapped on tracing paper. ©Young Jae, Shin

Excerpt from a garden record booklet, compiling short notes, mapping, and photographs. The booklet is produced monthly. ©Young Jae, Shin

Detailed records of the growth and condition of young oak seedlings. ©Young Jae, Shin

Even the smallest events become part of the record—such as the patterns of snow accumulating and melting, or a ball blown in from a nearby kindergarten. ©Young Jae, Shin

A Forest in Time
People sometimes question why this place is called a garden. The garden is not immediately clear, just by looking, what is happening here or where its value lies. Moreover, this site is still very young—among the XXI Century Gardens, its networks of relationships are only just beginning to take shape. For this reason, I feel the importance of recording with particular clarity. Careful observation and faithful documentation, can testify to the patient and considerate inquiries of students and landscape architects who seek to honor the earth – «where all the spirits of creation rest» – and to heal exhausted landscapes gently, in collaboration with both people and nature.

I imagine this place five, even ten years from now, when it has become a forest. In Jean Giono’s ‹The Man Who Planted Trees›, a single man cultivates a forest alone; here, generations of students will grow one together. I picture a graduate, years after leaving ETH, returning to this site and finding a tree that once began as an acorn in their hands, now grown tall and strong. By then, they will understand: how long it takes for a tree to grow; how much care from countless beings is needed; how many acorns never became trees, instead decomposing into organic matter. They will realize how the roots of those vanished seedlings carved channels in the soil, slowly restoring exhausted ground to health, until it could once again sustain a richer web of life. They will know that this long, unseen work of roots is itself true infrastructure.

Through the garden, I hope individuals come to understand both the fragility and the preciousness of life, and grow into someone able to relate to nature with greater justice. Perhaps that alone is enough to justify the value of this garden. In our time, a garden can become something more than power, ornament, or pleasure. Here, the garden becomes a place where humans learn how to enter into more just relations with nature; a place to learn how to design with respect for what is delicate and easily destroyed. The search for answers will never end, and the work in the garden itself becomes a process of seeking them. We will continue to question, act, and record and reflect through this garden.


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