The ZAK Association "Active Together in Neuperlach", an association for community work and district organization wants to assist in the redesign of a livelier and friendlier Neuperlach, the Munich satellite community, and to improve the social and cultural relations, by amongst other things:
 Support of collaboration as well as the social interaction of inhabitants of different national and ethnic origins
Support of initiatives and self-help of inhabitants' groups
Support of responsible and environmently-conscious thinking.
The ZAK residential gardens are part of the association ZAK "Active Together in Neuperlach", for District Community Work, Inc. and have existed since its founding in the eighties. At first the association was called "Neuperlach Should Blossom" and with the founding of the first gardens in the "Wohnring" (Central Neuperlach) in 1988, whose aim it was to support creative initiatives by the inhabitants for improving their life situation. The gardens became a social network whose impact became substantial beyond the spatially limited garden area; they developed into "germ cells" for other ideas for change and improvement in the neighborhood. Beside health  and economic benefits, social aspects are the most important motivation for the residential gardens: The gardens as places of communal activity allow unconstrained integration and communication between people of different age groups, social and national backgrounds or ethnic origin.
Over the years the individual gardens have partially changed; of the bigger so-called community gardens, in which several inhabitants of the surrounding area get to use a patch each, there currently exist two sites.
The biggest site, the so-called International Garden in the Oskar-Maria-Graf-Ring has grown, in the meantime, to 82 patches with 50 members who come from 12 countries. Many of them also had gardens or pursued agriculture in their native country. They work their patch in the communal garden, as they say, "only for the fun of it ... ", that probably means that it is not exclusively about the production of goods, that the garden fulfills other important needs. To take a small piece "of land" which one maintains according to one's own beliefs and customs, to socialize and connect in a way that would not take place in this otherwise highly compressed, anonymous living situation. Even though, in different cultures different concepts for nature exist, however, to be able to experience nature is a uniting, common value connecting all "gardeners".
The environmental-educational work with children is also integrated into the garden project of the Association. Working in their own small garden motivates the children to discover their interest in plants, to care for something, that grows and one day is harvested, whereby a sense of responsibility for a single living being can be aroused and respectful behavior in a wider social context can be learned as well.Die Gärten wurden zu einem sozialen Netzwerk, dessen Wirkung über den räumlich begrenzten Gartenbereich hinaus tragfähig wurde; sie entwickelten sich zu "Keimzellen" für weitere Ideen zur Veränderung und Verbesserung im Wohnumfeld. Neben dem gesundheitlichen und wirtschaftlichen Nutzen steht als Motiv für die Bewohnergärten vor allem auch der soziale Aspekt im Vordergrund: Die Gärten als Orte gemeinschaftlicher Aktivität ermöglichen ungezwungene Integration und Kommunikation zwischen Menschen verschiedener Altersstufen und unterschiedlicher sozialer und nationaler bzw. ethnischer Herkunft.
Im Lauf der Jahre haben sich die einzelnen Gärten teilweise verändert; von den größeren, sogenannten Gemeinschaftsgärten, in welchen mehrere Bewohner aus der Umgebung jeweils ein Beet als "Grabeland" nutzen, existieren derzeit noch zwei Anlagen.
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