Urban & Funky Garden

Slovenia · Nika Goršič, Ana Vita Lupše, Nuška Rožman, Veronika Cestnik · Celje Youth Center (MCC)

Urban & Funky Garden didn't start as a finished idea — it was tested and reshaped over four project-planning workshops before the team committed to a design. Early sessions mapped the Celje Youth Center's underused courtyard, worked through a canvas and SWOT analysis, and sketched the first visual concepts; a fourth workshop, on 2 March 2026, put the concept in front of MCC's own youth workers, who pushed back on functionality and how young people would actually be involved in building it. The team then took the idea further, out of the workshop room and into MCC's café, running informal interviews with young regulars about what was missing from the city center. The answer, repeatedly, was space that didn't require spending money to sit down — open-air cinema nights, live music, a hammock-and-cushion “chill zone,” and a shared garden all came up unprompted.

What's taking shape behind the youth center is a courtyard rebuilt around raised garden beds, a small amphitheater for events, and a pergola planned to grow into a living green wall — vines trained across the frame double as shade and, with a screen dropped in front, an open-air cinema. Part of the space is already built: pallet benches, an insect hotel, and a fire pit are in place, with the amphitheater, planting beds, and a chill zone with string lighting and cushioned seating following through spring 2026. Less concrete, more community, as the team put it in their own pitch.

The team expects the finished space to host at least 10 events in its first summer — open-air cinema nights, small concerts, Erasmus+ evenings, gardening workshops, and general social gatherings — reaching more than 100 young people as volunteers, participants, or visitors. After the project wraps, the garden becomes part of MCC's regular programming: film nights, workshops, discussions, and get-togethers, maintained by volunteers, youth workers, and the young people who use it, with part of the space run as an ongoing community garden.