Germany and its roofs – this is not a showcase story. It is only in recent years that German municipalities have begun to rethink green and utility roofs. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of know-how everywhere – including among planners – about what a roof can actually achieve and what it will have to achieve in the future, especially in the wake of climate change. In the June issue of G+L, we use remarkable roof projects to show where Germany needs to go in terms of roofs: upwards.
With this issue, you will also receive the G+L special issue “BAUDER” with the topic: Roof of the future.
In an interview around three years ago, Dr. Gunter Mann, President and Managing Director of the Bundesverband Gebäudegrün e.V. (German Green Building Association), told us that Germany was the world leader when it came to greening buildings. This did not mean that Germany did everything brilliantly, but that no other country could match the overall package (greened areas, municipal funding instruments, specialist regulations, specialist staff, experience). In May 2024, Gunter Mann confirmed this statement again when I asked him. Nothing had changed.
I already found it hard to believe this statement in 2021, and I still do. Not because I doubt Gunter Mann’s expert opinion, quite the opposite. I just can’t reconcile his statement with the lack of German lighthouse projects. What does Germany have to show for itself in terms of green buildings? There is the sometimes highly controversial Kö Bogen II in Düsseldorf by Ingenhoven and now the green bunker in St. Pauli by Landschaftsarchitektur+. After that? Nothing for a long time.
Lighthouses can be dazzling – my own perception shows that. At the same time, if our cities are so good at green buildings and have this USP, then we need to make more use of it for ourselves. After all, according to the BuGG market report, the area of green roofs in Germany increased by 8.7 million square meters to a total of around 160 million square meters in 2022, and almost every major municipality now has a green roof strategy. That’s pretty impressive. And it shows: Municipal awareness of the importance of roofs is there. But the media and social attention is lacking.
And our roofs and façades need this exclamation mark now – now more than ever. Climate change. Heavy rain. Heat waves. The roof of the city of tomorrow must look different. However, it cannot and must not only be about the green roof, the green façade (with perhaps a little PV here and there), but also about how we can use roofs in particular – the previously dead spatial capital of our cities – better, differently and in a more versatile way.
Playgrounds, parks, skate parks, bouldering areas, urban forests. The corresponding projects are already being implemented in the private sector. Now we need to make these projects accessible to the public and consumer-free. We need to broaden our horizons here – and I hope this booklet will help us to do so.
The booklet is available here in the store!
Our latest issue, the May edition, is all about bridges. The second part of the city special.
