Marusa-thesis outline

Who are my neighbours? Do my neighbours know each other? How do they use their gardens?
People living in Rotterdam and their relation to the gardens, nature.

Keywords: neighbours, gardens, private, public space, nature

Writing style: storytelling, observation records, overalls from research

Understanding garden and neighbour culture

Garden. Looking at it helps you forget about the grey concrete from the city, it means a quick escape to nature, arranging and caring for plants could be meditative and helps with personal growth. In the country of Slovenia, where I come from, the garden is an important part of living space. Slovenian gardens strive for the fullness of greenery, they usually have space for an outdoor table for warmer days and a part of the garden that is intended for growing home-grown vegetables and fruits.

I moved to Rotterdam in September 2020. I live in a multi-apartment house in Oud-Charlois, whose apartments face the central space, where the apartments on the ground floor have their own gardens. Such residential buildings are something quite common in Dutch urbanism. We live in an appartment with no garden, but have a great view on some of them. Observing happenings on gardens and their characters, the comparison to Slovenian customs is quite different.

I will investigate/research? the situation. The first step is to visit all the residents of my own and the opposite building, and if they want to participate, to interview them. I will ask each resident in the ground floor apartments if they would allow me to step into their garden and take a photo of it as well. The resulting series will be a research document.


There are 84 apartments, of which 42 are ground floors with gardens.
I don’t count on everyone to participate.

If they have a garden:
What does a garden mean to you?
What are you using it for?
How often do you use it?
Would you like to arrange/decorate it differently?
Do you use a shed?
If you had a bigger garden, and you could have anything on it, what would it be?
When buying an apartment, did you specifically look for an apartment with a garden?
What do you think about the idea of a common space / garden?
Do you know your neighbors?
How often do you go out of the city with a purpose of visiting nature?

If they do not have a garden:
What does a garden mean to you?
Would you like to have it?
What would you use it for?
Do you use a shed?
What do you think about these gardens?
If you could, would you change anything?
Do you use a balcony and for what?
What do you think about the idea of a common space / garden?
Do you know your neighbors?
How often do you go out of the city with a purpose of visiting nature?

I will leave the next steps to the outcome of the interviews.

Introduction <500words>
Chapter 1 <2000 words>
Chapter 2 <2000 words>
(probably in this chapter) Interviews and their analyse
Chapter 3 <2000 words>
Conclusion <500 words>