ENGFamous Danish urbanist wants to set up Ukraine's first therapeutic garden in Kyiv. We ask him why

For more than a year and a half, Danish urban planner and designer Mikael Colville-Andersen has been working on the Bikes 4 Ukraine initiative, which collects used bicycles from Europe and sends them to Ukraine. For the past six months, Colville-Anderse has been living in Kyiv and working on another project, a Scandinavian-style therapeutic garden that he wants to set up in Kyiv’s Podil neighborhood.

We met Colville-Andersen at the apartment he is renting in Kyiv and asked him about the garden, why it is important, and why he cares at all.

 Photo: Serj Khutsanu

 

– Alright, first things first, how are you?

– Do you know what SNAFU stands for? This word started as an ironic US military acronym during the Second World War and it meansSituation Normal – All Fucked Up. So I’m feeling something  like that right now, there's no other way to describe it. [Laughs]

By the way, SNAFU is the title of my art exhibition with the Ukrainian artist Kalyna Seriakovska, which will take place on March 1-9. It will be held with the support of the Danish Cultural Institute in a bomb shelter in the basement of the Bursa Hotel. So I take this opportunity to invite you to visit it.

– What else has happened in your life since our last conversation [in May 2023]? How are things going with Bikes 4 Ukraine?

 – I continue to work with the Bikes 4 Ukraine initiative, although crowdfunding and interest in Ukraine seems to be slowly fading, you know. Anyway, the other day I delivered 100 bikes to the city of Dnipro. Yes, we have reached the mark of 1,000 bicycles. It was a nice magic number. So we are still working on it. It takes a lot of time and effort, and, you know, we need sponsors. But the bikes keep coming. There is a huge need for it: 40% of Ukrainians still need humanitarian goods. 

I also published a book. It’s called 45 Urban Ideas for Ukraine – And Every Other City in the World and it came out in October [2023]. Back in January last year, I wrote to my publisher and said: "Dude, I'm afraid of any Marshall Plan for Ukraine, because the Marshall Plan after World War II was led by the Americans." All these companies made so much money on the Marshall Plan, right? A good capitalist model for them. Of course, they rebuilt some European cities. That's great. But then they rebuilt them in the American style, right? For example, Hanover.

They talked about the miracle of Hanover. "We rebuilt it, and it became like Dallas," right? And now we're struggling with all this car-centric infrastructure. So I'm afraid of what's going to happen next, because now capitalism is going through the roof, the corporate world. Reconstruction will be a huge engineering project. It's not like planting four trees on the street. It will be something like, let's build tunnels through the mountains or something like that. So I said I was concerned about that, so we should publish a book with all the good things about urbanism. And then he answered. I will never forget [his response]. He wrote that it would be the first book about post-war reconstruction in Europe in the 21st century. And I thought: "Holy shit, this is cool." I tried to gather as many colleagues from around the world as possible to write it. Everyone wanted to join in. In the end, we had 32 experts, including me. And I wrote about 14 chapters because I needed to fill in the gaps. For example, food security in cities. You know, what we used to do in cities, instead of keeping everything in warehouses.

 

 

So, we, 32 experts, including Ukrainians, are working on what Ukrainian cities need, regardless of whether they have been destroyed or are simply using this war as an opportunity for change. For me, this book is a great event, I'm proud of it and I highly recommend it. It’s really cool. 

As I just said, war is an opportunity, right? The mayor of Mykolaiv [Oleksandr Sienkevych] told me this back in 2022. And so my team and I worked for six months, developed a huge cycling strategy for the whole of Mykolaiv. And then the Danish government, which is helping to rebuild the city, said: "We don't see how this can help with the reconstruction." But this is the most Danish story of the whole period of the great war for Denmark, you know? And now I'm trying to figure out how to get funding for this. It's about 400,000 euros. But that's another story.

I also held several master classes on urbanism for children. One of them took place here, in the Samosad in Podil, and in one of the local schools. Twenty children came to Samosad with their parents. I have done this before all over the world. I like working with children because they have logic, curiosity, and no filters. How can you fix this street? What is the problem with this street? Why are the cars on the sidewalk? How can you fix it? Boom, boom, boom – a bunch of answers. It's so inspiring to see Ukrainian kids, you know, not being inferior to their peers in other parts of the world. So yes, there was a lot of tactical urbanism. [Laughs]

Among other small but pleasant things, we set up ping-pong tables in the Samosad and repaired the playground near the Bursa Hotel. So, as they say, I stuck my fingers in different pies. [Laughs] And then this idea of a therapeutic garden just came to me like a snowball.

 

I recently met an Englishman who lives nearby. He told me: "You know, there's a piece of land next to my office, and I've never seen anyone there. It's surrounded by walls and barbed wire, and there are some crazy trees growing there..." I didn't hear anything else after that. All I could hear in my head was the same phrase from the bar: a “therapeutic garden.”

That's how I found an abandoned plot of land in the heart of Podil – you know I love Podil – on Prytysko-Mykilska Street, between houses no. 1 and 5. The plot was fenced off from the public after the demolition of a building that stood there, in 1985. Nature was given carte blanche without human intervention for almost 40 years. This is a unique space in the center of a densely populated area. With the help of caring volunteers from the Kosmos Tabir NGO, I managed to find out that this land, fortunately, belongs to Kyiv residents, which means it is public property, which literally frees our hands to work on the garden. This, of course, does not completely free us from bureaucratic vicissitudes, but I am grateful that these vicissitudes are possible at all, if you know what I mean.

 

So now I'm working on getting permission from the city to use the land for the [therapeutic garden] and together with a brilliant group of volunteers we're going to do the hard work of making this space a therapeutic garden.

– Why do Ukrainians need this garden?

– A therapeutic or sensory garden is usually a green area on the hospital grounds where you can literally heal yourself with nature. In Denmark, there are gardens like this in almost every city. We started building them 10-15 years ago for our veterans who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. The difference from ordinary parks and gardens is that there is a lot of science, including psychology, involved in the development of such spaces.

In addition, we need to clear away a lot of dead wood and undergrowth, because this place is completely overgrown. Then, due to the historical nature of the area, we will conduct an archaeological survey. Then I will send university students to investigate the biodiversity of this unique piece of land, and their research will help us plan what to keep and what to cut.

We need to understand that it’s much more than just a fertile green urban space. It’s a space that has been carefully designed and purposefully planned to create an environment that can provide healing, comfort, and a sense of security for those who have experienced psychological or emotional stress.

 

 

– What is the value of such a garden?

– This is not just a garden. This space will be carefully planned and include elements that promote relaxation, mindfulness, and sensory stimulation, such as soothing colors, soft textures, and flowering (read fragrant) plants. 

It will also include secluded areas for solitude as well as shared spaces for social interaction and support. The development and maintenance of a trauma-informed garden promotes a sense of control, empowerment, and emotional resilience in those seeking solace and recovery from traumatic experiences.

The design of the garden should respond to different levels of trauma, from those with the worst difficulties to those who need a lighter approach to healing. Different zones are created to meet different needs. We will use Scandinavian ecological design and architecture, as well as landscaping that utilizes native vegetation species to enhance biodiversity and improve the sensory experience.

 

   

 I want spaces like it to appear in every city in Ukraine

   

– What’s the most difficult thing you’re facing at this stage?

– At this point I realized that this city has eight levels of Dante's inferno of bureaucracy. One department agrees to do what needs to be done, but they have to coordinate it with other departments, and so on, in a circle. But it's okay, we have the support of the Danish Embassy and others. We are also currently trying to enlist the support of the Dutch Embassy, which is very much in favor of the project and is located 100 meters from the site. 

I want to clean up the site in the process of preparation with volunteers from the rave clean-up initiative [Repair Together]. And then we can invite an archaeologist to do some research. But I hope it will be quick, because we won't be digging there very much. After that, I plan to arrange with students of geodesy who will be able to analyze the biodiversity of the site to understand which trees go well with the existing trees on the site, and which plants are suitable for that land. We will also hold seminars for mental health professionals. So we will push nature in the right direction, lay paths, and build benches. We will do everything ourselves. I want the garden to open by May or June. 

I also recently received a letter from the Swedish company Husqvarna Gardening Tools. I play a lot with Scandinavian themes, so it's not surprising that I turn to Scandinavian businesses for support. [Laughs] The brand's parent company in Stockholm, through its Ukrainian branch, said that they would provide us with all the necessary gardening tools for the project. That's pretty damn cool. At the moment, everything rests on funding, which is why I've launched a crowdfunding campaign. In fact, if I had access, I would go there today and start preparing the plot myself. I just want to start working with what I have.

 

– Tell more about the therapeutic elements of a space like this.

– I've studied these damn gardens too much, so I have a bit of an idea of how things should be, and I want to do it right. I'm a perfectionist with ADHD and stress disorder. So it has to be perfect for me, as much as possible. The design is primarily focused on veterans’ needs, which is something no one else in the world has really done. Over the past few months, I've been interviewing veterans about their needs, which, by the way, are strikingly different from the needs of a wife whose husband is at the front and whose children worry every time there is a rocket attack. 

In particular, I concluded that the paths in such a garden should not be paved with gravel, because for many combatants the sound of rustling stones underfoot is a significant audio trigger. 

And then I learned that any low sounds trigger us all. We try to fence ourselves off from such sounds, to buffer them. That's why we need to add a type of shrubbery to the garden that absorbs sound more than usual. 

Then we remember the Russian missile and UAV attacks. It's important for Ukrainians to always have a wide range of sky views, so no green canopies made of plants and tree branches. This is all incredibly important. It is also important to consider how to make the space barrier-free.

 

 

In general, the garden is planned to be divided into three levels according to the severity of the visitor’s trauma. In the most critical cases, the person is so traumatized that he or she can’t leave the house and doesn’t want to talk to other people or even look you in the eye. This is just terrible. Such people need a zone of privacy, through which no one can pass, with a single bench.

There is also an interesting detail about the benches. People who have returned from the battlefield often cannot relax in a public space while simply sitting on a park bench. Do you know why? Because their backs are exposed from behind, so it feels like it's a dangerous space. They may feel like someone could sneak up on them at any moment. That's why a bench in a therapeutic garden should be backed by a barricade of logs above the level of the person's head.

Certain areas in the garden should correspond to the levels of the best mental states: an area for groups of people to stay safely and an area for talking with other people, if the visitor needs it.

It's all a process. It's something new. For many people in Ukraine, it's a whole learning curve, but it's incredibly intuitive. We all know that walking in the woods is very cool. We don't know why, but nature pushes us to heal. This is biology. We all come from nature, and it's only there that we can really feel at ease.

Despite the progress, mental health is still a bit of a taboo around the world, isn't it? The creation of this garden is also the beginning of a global conversation.