Spontaneous Nature - Mapping and Making Sense
Author
Research of Gradoscope, led by Ina Valkanova in collaboration with Simeon Malinov and Alexander Petrov from One Tree
When
17 July 2025
Where
Around Stochna Gara
Within the framework of Nine Elephants, Gradoscope will carry out the first action of the Common Grounds project to explore the urban nature around Stoczna Station by walking in abandoned urban spaces such as the bed of the Vladaiska River and the abandoned railway areas around Stochna Gara.
Common Grounds is an initiative that brings together artists, researchers and local communities in conversations and actions to protect and restore soil in urban and rural areas. Led by three organisations and partners – La Citadelle de Marseille (France), Gradoscope (Bulgaria) and Fundación RIA (Spain) – the project seeks sustainable solutions to the environmental, democratic and urban challenges associated with the regeneration of contaminated soils on different types of land. During 2025, the project will explore the different perspectives and interactions that people have with the environment in order to present a new perspective on the environment in which we live.
As a preparation of the project, within the framework of “Nine Elephants” we will carry out the first action to explore the urban nature around Stoczna Station by walking in abandoned urban spaces such as the bed of the Vladaiska River and the abandoned railway areas around Stoczna Station. With the help of One Tree, experts in landscape planning, and biodiversity scientists from the Circular Economy Institute, we will map the spontaneous development of nature in an undeveloped urban environment, discuss how we should coexist with different species and maintain such urban nature, and how citizens and artists can be part of this process.
Stoczna Station, Sofia (Bulgaria) – an abandoned freight railway station in the centre of Sofia, where the Gradoscope Association, experts, institutions and citizens are working on a widely shared concept for the future uses of the site. The industrial past of the location has invariably impacted and partially contaminated the soil. This raises an important question in the regeneration process: how can the new functions of the building and the public spaces around it also address soil contamination? Since 2021 Gradoscope has been working on the regeneration of the area as a living and connecting urban part.
Ina Valkanova is an architect, urbanist and researcher. She is co-founder of GRADOSCOP – a collective for urban transformation. She studied architecture at RWTH Aachen and the University of the Arts in Berlin. From 2019 to 2024 she is a PhD student at ETH Zurich, where she is researching the relationship between industry and environment in the Thracian Economic Zone in Plovdiv with the Newrope team. She has worked as an architect with Alvaro Siza in Porto and Benthem Crouwel in Amsterdam, participated in the creation of Vision for Sofia as Investment and Innovation Coordinator and lectured at the Copenhagen and Belgrade Architecture Weeks.
With financial support from Creative Europe.
Links
Presentation of an audio guide that can be listened to alone or in a group during a walk in the city