Theoretical and practical research on/with TIK Connected Open Greens in Frankfurt am Main is settled within the framework of the project Biotop Stadt Frankfurt that explores with interdisciplinary methods modes and conditions, aesthetics and politics of coexistence in urban space (for more details see: Urban Biotopes on TIK Wiki and the the Urban Biotopes project pages at www.under-construction.cc).
From this background we draw not only our local research area(s) and some of the methods, but also some of our research questions.

The starting point is: Looking at the city of Frankfurt, how can we define “Open Green” within the cityscape and under contemporary urban conditions?

[Pls. note: Many of the links to other websites gathered in the following paragraphs will lead you to contents that are available in German language only. However, the linked pages come with loads of pictures, thus they may be helpful anyway…]

Seen from a more general point of view, there are first of all what would be called “Public Greens” within the city, most noably public gardens and parks, playgrounds etc. In Frankfurt am Main we have also the so called Wallanlagen (the greens around the former city wall, for more detailed info see also the Wallanlagen-info pages on frankfurt.de) and, already embracing many of Frankfurt's city parks, but also encompassing a (geographically) wider scope the Grüngürtel (“Green Belt”, for more detailed info see also the Grüngürtel pages on frankfurt.de).
Part of Frankfurt's core Public Green areas are, of course, the riverbelts of the river Main with the old city harbours, Osthafen and Westhafen - the latter being now major areas of transformation and gentrification (see below).
Additionally, there are of course public greens maintained by public institutions - i.e. the Botanical Garden of Goethe University (no entry fee)* - or by the city of Frankfurt - like the Palmengarten and the Zoo (both with entry fee) - as well as a few rooftop 'gardens'/sites that were opened more recently on office buildings and parking lots - however, these are maintained by companies (and most of them are accesible with entry fees only).
* Update (Sept. 2, 2010): In January 2012, the Botanical Garden will be transferred from Goethe University to the City of Frankfurt and united with Palmengarten.

There are, especially in the gentrification areas, waste lands (most of these are, however, not accessible to the public). And then, from a mirco-perspective, one might also add the greens enclosed by traffic zones (traffic islands and street refuges), the green in the streets.
As a visual layer and emotional trigger, however not public: frontside gardens, backyard gardens, rooftop-gardens (corporate buildings and private houses).

Now, how many of these Public Greens could be qualified as Open Greens?
Ok, to answer this question seriously, first of all we should try to find out what “Open Green” means in general - and what it could mean more specifically in an urban context - here: in the city of Frankfurt.
As this is a research question, we'll try to work on this in the related area below.

Closely related to our ongoing research in the framework of Urban Biotopes - and more specifically: the Biotop Stadt Frankfurt project, after having looked at Public Greens in (and around) the city of Frankfurt in a broader scope, the next step was to choose selected areas for more focused explorations.
This was done a.o. over the summer term as part of the Biotop Stadt Frankfurt project, together with students from Frankfurt university. The students selected a smaller choice of areas for group work (Westhafen, Osthafen, Innenstadt, Bockenheim, Seckbach, and, as an alternative access, “Mobile Biotopes). The results of the group work were presented in a small exhibition and will be documented in a brochure as well as online.
This first approach to the selected areas was method-oriented (one purpose was to explore a range of different scientific and artistic methods) and transfer-oriented (another purpose was to develop formats for information/education about the biotopes).

However, also the areas were chosen for good reasons: While Seckbach - or more precisely: the so called Seckbacher Ried is part of the Grüngürtel and a nature reserve (already since the 1930ies), all other areas are not only located in the or close to the center of the city, but also zones of heavy urban (re-)development and gentrification.

Green(s) within these areas play different important roles in these processes - as zones of recreation for all different kind of people, as points of reference for commecial city development strategies (i.e. for both harbour areas: “Wohnen und Arbeiten am Fluss” / “living and working at the riverbanks”), as exemlary sites for the redevelopment processes (from former industrial sites and working class quarters - or, in the case of Bockenheim: a former university quarter - to new, strategically branded city quarters), and as endangered territories of biodiversity.

The decision to work addditionally on the topic of “Mobile Biotopes” was made on the background of experiencing not only the mentioned role(s) of the Greens within these redevelopment processes annd the related politics of branding, but also the resulting precarious state - including the question of their accessabilty to the public.

Based on the experiences and results of the previous phases of the project, we decided to continue with the following areas on focus - for the Biotop Stadt Frankfurt project as well as for the special research part on the topic of Open Green(s):
Bockenheim - Westhafen - Innenstadt - Osthafen

Moreover, we decided to (at least partly) focus on a micro-perspective: To take deep insight into certain areas of the mentioned territories for more detailed research. These 'Microtopes' will be further specified and examined over the next months.

Last but not least, we decided to continue to work with Mobile Biotopes (moving within and between the mentioned areas).

Over the summer term 2010, the students of the interdisciplinary seminar Biotop Stadt Frankfurt worked together in groups focussing the chosen areas and developed individual as well as group projects. In July, 2010, these projects were presented in a small exhibition in our institute (in the framework of the student's exhibition each semester is closing with). Currently, we are preparing a documentation (print and pdf) that will hopefully be available in spring 2011.

Meanwhile, the interdisciplinary courses related to Biotop Stadt Frankfurt are continued. Over the winter term 2010/2011 we're focussing on traces and tracing (“Spuren”), and on the our institute's building and surrounding (not only being part of the 'Biotope Bockenheim', but also a biotope in itself - a former printing plant and, within a quarter in transition, a residue of 'urban wilderness'). We also go deeper into theory, methods and techniques.

In 2011 we'll continue with the Biotope Stadt Frankfurt project, based on the general decisions made above - however, we'll then also add the Campus Westend and the Campus Riedberg to the sites we're researching), and there will be also additional courses and workshops related to the focus theme Urban Green(s).
In this turn, we'll also foster our networking with local partners.

There are two city bee 'nodes' we are already connected to:

finger stadtimkerei frankfurt - Frankfurt's 'City Beekeeping), a project run by artist's initiative finger (Florian Haas and Andreas Wolf). hives currently on the roof of Frankfurt's museum of modern art (MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst) and at Licht- und Luftbad (“Bienengruppe” / bee group).
and the hives at Frankfurt University's botanical garden, kept by Prof. Dr. Christian Winter.
(for more info see the Botanical Garden's website with a page about the bees and wild bees.)

We'll see, in how far these 'nodes' can be part of our local COG work as well.
A.o., the finger stadtimkerei not only does artistic research on city bees (in general as well as in different projects), and it has a research station located on the roof of Frankfurt's Museum for Modern Art MMK in cooperation with the HOBOS Honey Bees Online (DE / Europe) group.
It has also a community project, the 'Offene Bienengruppe', at a location that could be qualified as Open Green and possibly host a COG research installment.

Prof. Dr. Winter is working with the concept of sustainable beekeeping, and also interested in work supporting the city's biodiversity (including the aspect of plant biodiversity fostering the existence of city bees).

Besides in summer 2010 we had a special project for children, the Beehive project, and we've also an ongoing research project on the cultural imagology of bees and beekeeping. Both are projects in their own rights, however, there might be fruitful output and synergies for the COG research as well…

In 2011, as part of the proceedings of the Biotop Stadt Frankfurt project we are planning to install several small Bee Gardens (based on Tübinger Mischung seeds) in different quarters of the city.

Proposal for a possible definition of Open Green as (part of an) Urban Biotope:

A publicly accessible zone 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.

Obviously, this proposal for a possible definition still raises questions. I.e:

* What is 'publicly accessible'? Basically, we would think of a not predefined, diverse public. Occasional passers-by as well as people who consciously use this place for whatever purposes.
* Does 'publicly accessible' mean necessarily accessible 24/7 hrs?
* What about property? Should the terrain be in the commons (and if so, what does 'in the commons' mean under urban conditions), or could it also belong to the city, to a public building etc? Or could it be any place that is accessible?
* Is an Open Green necessarily 'green'?

The most obvious way of linking COGs with TIK is, of course, using data from the research installments for generating TIKs.
Now we are still not sure if we'll have the technical facilities for our COG Frankfurt to generate i.e. Windclock-TIKs.
Thus we're also thinking about alternative possibilitis for generating data sets that could be used for this purpose.
[Wouldn't it be generally nice to have a little programme for all COGs that does so with a simple research data set we might agree upon in advance?]

However, as an equally or probably even more important part of our TIK-related research is the TIME BENDING CLOCK, we also see anoother possible way to link COGs with TIK(s) - this time one another basis:
Among the TBC mechanisms could be EcoTimeZones - or, put the other way round: There could be EcoTimeZones being part of the TBC as a networked mechanism.

The theoretical concept and practical installment of EcoTimeZones will be developed in a separate chapter below.

In the framework of the TIK Connected Open Greens we're planning to build a COG research installment at Frankfurt.

Over the second half of the year 2010, we have untertaken a survey of possible sites for the installment(s). As it turned out, it is all but easy to find places that are a) in public, b) indeed public/open, c) apt to install something that has a chance to survive over a longer period of time (well, based on our general perspective on what an 'Open Green' could be, this was no surprise). But this can be embraced as a challenge, both for theoretical reflection as well as for practical work.

Thus, we decided on the one hand side to keep the idea of 'Open Green' (and its possible manifestations) on the issues during our project work in general, including further theoretical research, explorations, and critical reflection upon the concept - however, for the COG research installments, we'll also have probably 1-3 core locations that allow a fixed installment, and to combine this with a mobile garden/green installment.
According to the TIK/COG agreements, the core COG research isntallment will be based on a Tübinger Mischung seeding.
Yet, in addition to this, we want to work with fixed/mobile Microtopes as COG research installment(s) as well.

Since December 2010, we're working on the details for the installments, including concepts for the construction.
We're still not sure about the technologies we'll be able to use (if we go deeper into tech specs, these should match with what is used for the other COG installments in the network - however, what we'll at least do is a process documentation in words, images and perhaps also sound).

Last but not least - and regarding the TIK related research: perhaps most importantly - we'll also work on the connection to the TIME BENDING CLOCK and the TIME BENDING CLOCK WORK, for we also see the TBC as one possible link between COGs and TIKs. This could be set into practice by the way of EcoTimeZones as TBC mechanisms.

Now, what is an EcoTimeZone?
How could it be defined based upon theoretical considerations, related to the concept of TBC as well as to the idea of Urban Greens / Biotopos?
How could existing EcoTimeZones be detected? How could they be installed?

These questions will be, and currently are part of our theoretical and practical research.
More soon…

As part of the collective TIK OpenGreens project, on May 1 and May 2, 2011 five Bee Gardens have been installed in Frankfurt as research installments.

Find more information about the Bee Gardens at:
Bee Garden Network Basic Infos at www.under-construction.cc
Bee Garden Network - Bee Gardens Frankfurt 2011 at www.ArtSciEd.net
Bee Garden Network Main Site at www.ArtSciEd.net

And, of course, see also:
TIK Connected Opengreens Platform

Pls. note: As of August, 2011 we have done an extensive monitoring over the last months, including several hundreds of photographs of the five Bee Garden Network gardens.

Currently we're in train to put this documentation online (on www.ArtSciEd.net as well as on the TIK Connected OpenGreens platform).
However, this is a work in progress and will take some time.
Plus, for the time being, monitoring is continued…

For currently we're still in a very active period of on site research, documentation and reports will probably have to wait until late autumn/winter 2011.

Thank you for your patience.

Parallel to the Bee Garden Network Garden installments and monitoring, work on (IN)VISIBLE GARDENS has been continued over the year as well.

We hope to be able to put on some preliminary research reports and also a photo documentation online soon.

There will be also a documentation on the TIK Connected OpenGreens platform.

For currently we're still in a very active period of on site research, documentation and reports will probably have to wait until late autumn/winter 2011.

Thank you for your patience.