Travel

The Circular Gardens of Brøndby Haveby

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3 years ago

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Sep 25, 2020 05:54am EDT

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Ann Moises

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Brøndby Haveby is a place of peaceful retreat from the hustle and bustle of city life.
Built in 1964, the houses here are strategically placed inside a grid of circles to promote a sense of community amongst people.
These allotment gardens allow city dwellers to do some gardening in the spring and summer months.

Brøndby Haveby or Brøndby Garden City in Denmark consists of a cluster of houses laid out in circles and surrounded by lush greenery.

From the ground, this vast land on the outskirts of Copenhagen seems like any other ordinary neighborhood. However, it just looks unbelievable from above.

A spacious lawn where renters can plant trees or crops separate the houses.

There are several community gardens; hence, a beautiful foliage encompasses the entire land.

From above, the circular gardens of Brøndby Haveby seem like geoglyps.

In 1964, the municipality of Brøndby agreed to dedicate space for allotment to make way for the project. Brøndby Garden City was built thereafter.

In an article written by Lonely Planet, photographer Henry Do said that the garden’s design was based on the layout of typical 18th century Scandinavian villages.

Do took photos and a video of this remarkable garden and described Brøndby in the article as ‘a whole pizza with each slice as a home.’

View this post on Instagram

The Round Gardens 🍀🌳 // Unreal how my recent images from here went crazy viral… I put together this video to hopefully help everyone understand more about this phenomenon allotment gardens. These 12 circular community gardens were designed by the genius landscape architect Erik Mygind as a place where people can get away from the stresses of apartment living, plant some fruit trees and to relax on the weekend. Typical rent per garden is around $150/month. Due to zoning restrictions, people can only live on the property 6 months out of the year. The intention behind this unique layout was to mimic the traditional patterns of the 18th century Danish villages, where people would use the middle as a focal point for hanging out, mingle and social interchange between neighbors. To create somewhat of a privacy between each gardens, the bordering hedges are slanted towards the middle and being used for parking purposes as you can see from the video. Love it or hate it, I hope you'll enjoy this video & share it to those that take their backyard for granted 😊😁 #amazingdenmark .

A post shared by Henry Do (@henry_do) on Aug 21, 2019 at 9:02am PDT

Generally, there are laws that forbid people from residing here permanently. A Reddit user named Zerak Tul explained that these allotment gardens are for city dwellers who want to do some gardening during spring and summer. Moreover, renters can stay between the 1st of April and the 1st of October only, and on weekends throughout the year, according to Awesome Inventions.

Although the gardens are rented, the houses are owned. To qualify for a house, your permanent residence should be within 20 kilometers from the plot. A house here usually measures 50 square meters only and most serve as sheds or storage facilities.

Brøndby Haveby was purposely designed and arranged in grids of circles. Erik Mygind, its landscape architect, wanted the renters to interact more and feel that they belong.