Intentions for the Unintentional

Spontaneous vegetation is a characteristic component of the urban environment. It occurs at no financial cost, is authentic and is always appropriate to the site conditions. Until now, the use of spontaneous vegetation for ornamental purposes in public or private areas has been largely misunderstood. If it is possible to make spontaneous vegetation more attractive, it may also be possible to introduce it as an alternative to ornamental plantings in the city. To intervene in spontaneous vegetation may seem contradictory: ‘spontaneous’ means that which occurs by chance, without conscious design intent. We are dealing here with design using spontaneously occurring species. The starting point of this idea is to use plants that can clearly build stable communities under the given conditions of a site and to try to transform the plant communities according to a design perspective. The investigations show that ‘improving’ spontaneous stands by adding new plants is possible. However, a proper assessment of competition conditions is needed to get a permanent establishment of these new plant communities. Theories that originally derive from vegetation ecology (i.e. plant strategies and equilibrium models) can help us to understand the underlying processes and to make these interventions more successful.