If skyscrapers take the place of parks, then why not build a park inside a skyscraper? Devolution, a creative and architectural studio, is a bizarre but not impossible idea, in fact, it was built a few months ago in the Chinese city of Xiamen. It’s called Devolution Park, the apartment that has been transformed into a real public park with plants, grass, benches and paths. 

The designers of Devolution rented an apartment of about 90 square meters on the 27th floor of a 50-storey building and, instead of furnishing it with beds, sideboards and sofas, they decided to fill it with earth and vegetation, taking up the style of the increasingly rare public parks. 

A few years ago, when buildings with dozens and dozens of floors were still few and far between, each district had a public park where residents, from the elderly to the youngest, would meet to spend and share their free time. Over time, many of these places disappeared to make room for skyscrapers and the few that remained were privatized. Today the only green spaces present in the cities are the courtyards of the condominiums, which can be used by the tenants. Devolution Park is an original and impactful way to denounce the privatization of public spaces and with them also people’s leisure time. 

Due to the nature of the project, Devolution Park has only survived for a few months, but its message came out loud and clear and the images of the apartment turned into a parking lot went around the world.