Residents in the Hafenrandverein (Harbour Edge Association) organised the Park Fiction initiative to prevent the development of the slope along the Elbe River in St. Pauli though a campaign that brought together art and music subcultures with community residents. Park Fiction hosted events and invented tools to design an alternative project.
Artists Christoph Schäfer and Cathy Skene developed a wish archive, a portable library, a clay-modeling office, a wish hotline, a planning container, and an action kit (mobile planning briefcase). The artists also distributed questionnaires for the public to fill out. This open planning process allowed participants to articulate the diverse possibilities of the park in an informal social environment. Frequently mentioned wishes, such as a fountain, were matched with individual plans, resulting in the "Pirate Fountain," for example, while everyone agreed to the wish for a "strawberry tree house where grown-ups aren't allowed."
After eight years of radical democratic urban planning and negotiations, Park Fiction is now being realized.
Park Fiction is a citizen driven planning initiative involving artists and musicians, founded 1994 in Hamburg, Germany.