The Navarinou Park, also known as the parking park, is a free self-managed space in Exarcheia – an area which has been a centre of social movements and a host of countercultures since the 1970s. The land actually belongs to the Greek association of enginners and architects (Technical Chamber of Greece) which first intended to develop it as its office space, then planned for it to become a square as part of a land exchange agreement with the Municipality of Athens to finally become, since 1990, an open air parking space.
In 2008 the lease was terminated and plans for its construction started to be discussed, to which local groups strongly reacted against. On the 7th of March 2009 a large number of people, including community groups and individuals, responded to a digital media call for collective action to occupy the space demanding the transformation of the parking into a park. Guerilla gardening started right away. The park has become a self-organised, anti-hierarchical and anti-commercial space managed through an open public assembly. It has actually become a place of gathering, creation, emancipation, gaming and resistance. It aims to become a park beyond profit and property, an urban common, functioning as a space of play, communication, creativity, exchange and activism beyond barriers of age, origin, education, social and financial status.