In the urban context, groves have been increasingly used since the 20th century as a means of humanising large scales and enriching functional urban spaces with vegetation. Particularly in GDR urban planning, the motif of the grove — as a permeable, low-maintenance, yet spatially expressive cluster of trees — was applied along settlement edges and within parks. The groves along the radial break up the monumentality of former traffic flows, translating the transit space into a sequence of quiet, shaded places for rest and encounter. As vegetative filters, they create a gentle threshold between movement and pause.
