Galliot Park began as a barren, overlooked stretch of open land in Glenhazel, Johannesburg, the kind of space residents had learned to walk past rather than through.

 

Years of neglect had turned it into a symbol of decline rather than a place of gathering, and for many in the surrounding community, particularly women and children, it had quietly become somewhere to avoid rather than enjoy.

 

The brief was as much about restoring trust as it was about restoring ground: to reclaim the park not only as a green space, but as a piece of psychological and social infrastructure for the neighbourhood.