“The spiral garden system”, designed by Benet and Saida Dalmau, Anna Julibert and Carmen Vilar from Spain, is one of the second prize winners of Iida Awards 2010, organized by Designboom in collaboration with Incheon Metropolitan City. The design is conceived as a spiraling garden space, enveloped by a lace-like mesh structure, shielding it from the surroundings and creating an impression of lightness. It is a sustainable public space, self-sufficient and easy to maintain. The spiral contains an ascending garden where native vegetation can coexist with urban orchards, shared and planted by the neighbors and serving also as a green outdoor walk. Fourteen meters in diameter, the structure provides 59 garden lots, with 6 square meters per person. The necessary water supply for planting is acquired by harvesting rainwater.

With the culture of neighborhoods gradually dissipating into bare cordiality and essential indifference between tenants, contemporary metropolises are deprived of common green spaces with significant social impact. The proposal envisions a public garden as a physically separate object, but also as a psycho-geographical extension of what constitutes the fullness of city dwelling.  Here the city inhabitants can tend to their plants and get to know their neighbors through the occasional chitchat over the garden fence.