Alamar is a new city built in the 1970s in the outskirts of La Habana, Cuba, mostly with rudimental prefabricated technologies inherited from the soviets. It has been put in place through self-construction teams of 32 citizens employed in the so called microbrigadas: a system affecting not only the way the physical environment has been produced, but also the social texture formed in the process.
Starting from an urban gardening project, the experience of Prinzessinnengarten extended to a wide range of innovative practices, political stances and networking activities fostering a DIY integrated approach. Since 2020, the gardens occupy two distinct areas, both organized on principles of self-sufficiency, food-independence and social inclusivity: the original site located in Moritzplatz (Berlin-Kreuztberg) and the recent acquisition of San Jacobi cemetery (Berlin-Neukölln). The Prinzessinnengarten project promotes gardening as a practice of community building and social emancipation from urban neo-liberal dynamics, while also offering its visitors and members a wide range of cultural and educational activities aimed at sharing different forms of knowledge and skills and at raising consciousness on current ecological issues and social challenges.