Room To Grow

“There are more living organisms in a tablespoon of soil than there are people on Earth.”

— Pamela Shor, Black Rootz

A gathering for collective care, ecological repair and grounded connection, Room To Grow is a regular space to share skills, knowledge and wisdom that supports the cultivation of joy, abundance and reciprocity through growing spaces, both on the Neighbourhood Public Square site to be spread across our homes, streets, and shared neighbourhoods.

Whether you're navigating change in your life, feeling a heaviness about the state of the world, seeking clarity, or a deeper connection to the land, soil or the work of the Neighbourhood Public Square, Room To Grow invites you to slow down and root in to neighbourhood life by tending to the growing spaces on our shared land together.

As part of Neighbourhood Repair Club, the gathering is hosted in and around the polytunnel on site, alongside everyday repair skills workshops that are held each week. See the Neighbourhood Repair Club event page to see what’s coming up, and to sign up.

This is your invitation to stop by on Tuesday afternoons and participate in this regular gardening space to contemplate and nurture the seeds we are sowing into our collective futures. Ultimately together we are remembering the land is not separate from us and that through working with the soil, we can repair our relationships to it, as well as to our place, to each other and to ourselves.

Join us as you are with curious, open, mind and ready to participate in a gentle, steady form of transformation.

Let’s grow something beautiful together.

There’s room for you here.

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ACTIVITIES

Room To Grow sessions are led by With Nature In Mind, a Birmingham-based Community Interest Company dedicated to enhancing mental health and well-being by connecting people with nature.

Every week we’ll get our hands in the soil— planting, repairing, learning, and sharing. We will practice working with the seasons and natural cycles drawing on the wisdom of our each other, our ancestors, together with a range of knowledges for growing herbs, flowers, and food.

We’ll also imagine possible futures for rewilding the Neighbourhood Public Square site in ways that seek to mitigate the impacts of climate breakdown, with alternative possibilites for our ecology rooted in abundance, care and reciprocity.

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ABOUT THE SITE

This session takes place in and around the polytunnel on the Neighbourhood Public Square site.

As we prepare to begin the construction of Neighbourhood Public Square together, we are very committed and excited to keep the site as open as possible. In order to make this work, we invite you to adopt new postures together with us and adhere to some important principles for taking care and keeping each other safe on site.

— All activity on site is only open to adults and children over the age of 11

— Children aged 11—17 must be accompanied by an adult

— Toilet facilities will be available offsite, at the entrance of South Loop Park, for this event

— There is level access across the site, but the ground is uneven in places, so please do navigate this carefully, and look out for each other too

— Closed toed shoes must be worn on site for your safety

— We will also provide any additional safety equipment that is required on your arrival, including hi vis vests which are to be worn at all times on site

If further information would support your visit, please contact Emily on emilycz@civicsquare.cc. You can also let us know about any specific access requirements you may have during the sign up process, and where possible we will of course seek to meet these, whilst also being honest about the limitations of the current infrastructure where needed to ensure you have any information you may need before attending.

We thank you for your understanding and collaboration whilst we hold the constraints and opportunities of working in close proximity to former industrial buildings which are currently undergoing surveys to gain a full picture of their condition, whilst we keep trying to practice as openly as possible together during this time, and throughout the construction stages to come.

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IS IT FOR ME?

Room To Grow may be for you if you:

— Are interested in growing, gardening and caring for plants and the ecosystems around them
— Tend a growing space in your home, street or neighbourhood, or would like to

— Are seeking a deeper connection to the land
— Would love to learn, share and exchange skills with others
— Are looking for a regular space to work on something meaningful with others in the neighbourhood
— Live, work or are rooted in and around Ladywood and are interested in the co-building of Neighbourhood Public Square (those coming from further afield are also very welcome)

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ABOUT SITE AS A CLASSROOM

Site As A Classroom is a long-term collective practice to ensure every phase of designing, building, repairing and stewarding the Neighbourhood Public Square site is an open, inclusive, and shared opportunity for learning together in our neighbourhood and beyond.

"Together, we are a commitment to this land as a site of reimagination, reuse and repair; a place to learn, build, eat, grow, care and organise; a home for the capacities, skills and relationships we need to face the challenges and possibilities ahead together, held in common for the neighbourhood for generations to come."

—Neighbourhood Public Square: The Land Story So Far

Our intention is for our team, the neighbourhood, and wider national and industrial scales to learn from the ongoing demonstration through Neighbourhood Public Square in real-time, as well as informing how we learn from what the site, ecoregion, neighbourhood, peers, and precedents can continue to teach us, without end.

This builds on so many experiences we have shared with you all so far including Doughnut Economics Peer-To-Peer Learning Journeys, Ecological Health in Neighbourhoods, Neighbourhood Trade School, Material Matter[s], Re:Builders, Retrofit Reimagined, learning from Centre For Alternative Technology, The Rediscovery Centre, Le Magasin Électrique, Ubele Initiative, Freedom & Balance, and countless others.

Launching more formally in May 2025, Site As A Classroom is an open invitation to bring the skills you have, your energy, curiosity, and lived wisdoms to help shape and co-produce this next phase of discovery and demonstration together through everyday participation, co-builds and a range of open enquiries that we are excited to share in together.

Find out more: bit.ly/PublicSquareDesign

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