This week: Germany’s disastrous forest policy, bye bye buildings, makeover for Vienna’s Praterstern and heat records in Göttingen.
What happens in the world of planning? What are your colleagues talking about at the coffee machine in the morning? In our weekly press review, we summarize the most important news from landscape architecture and urban planning for you. This week: Germany’s disastrous forest policy, bye bye buildings and heat records in Göttingen.
Germany’s disastrous forest policy. According to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, two percent of Germany’s land area should be wilderness. However, a Frontal21 survey now shows that our federal states have an average of just 0.6 percent. The latest BMEL forest report also reveals Germany’s disastrous forest policy. Read all about Germany’s dying forests and what needs to happen now here.
Building Senator Scheel takes a stand on Berlin’s land pressure. The 2021 annual press conference of the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing took place this Monday. Berlin’s Building Senator Sebastian Scheel used the event to take stock – after all, not only the German Bundestag will be elected on September 26, but also the Berlin House of Representatives and the district assemblies. The central topic of the press conference was “land management”. You can read here how Sebastian Scheel intends to tackle the pressure on space in Berlin.
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Hamburg participation system as open source software. Together with the CityScienceLab at HCU, the Hamburg Urban Development Authority has developed the digital participation system DIPAS and has now made it available to other municipalities and organizations as publicly usable software. DIPAS is thus the first system for informal citizen participation without media discontinuity. Read all about it here at kommune21.de.
Protest against the demolition of the Lokrichthallen in Trier. The railroad repair works in Trier-West, which was a listed building until recently, is to be demolished. Architects and institutions protest against the city’s demolition plans in an open letter .
Görlitz – structurally weak, but great. From January 2019 to March 2020, 60 creative professionals were able to live and work in Görlitz on a trial basis. Now the initiators took stock of the positive results in a virtual press conference last week and invited people to the next round. We present the project here.
Makeover for Vienna’s Praterstern. The forecourt of Vienna’s Praterstern station is to become a “cool oasis”. As reported by the Wiener Zeitung, construction is scheduled to begin in fall 2021, with the Praterstern consortium, KENH Architekten and DnD Landschaftsplanung in charge. The transport hub is currently defined by desolation and dreariness.
41.9 degrees and it’s getting hotter. On February 14, the Göttingen measuring station showed minus 23.8 degrees, a week later 18.1 degrees – according to the German Weather Service, the Göttingen measuring station broke all previous records last week with a historic temperature rise of 41.9 degrees. Read here how the climate turnaround can now be achieved.
Climate activist wanted for Nord Stream 2
Does the squirrel eat hard? From next week – on March 1 – there will be a new EU energy label. Which is surprising: The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is using a squirrel to promote the new label. The role of the rodent is not explained – but one thing is certain: the familiar colorful efficiency scale will remain, the plus classes A+ to A+++ will be dropped. You can read about the other changes here.
Erfurt cancels BUGA opening ceremony. As the Thüringer Allgemeine reported last week, Erfurt’s Lord Mayor Andreas Bausewein has canceled the official BUGA opening ceremony, planned for April 23, 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the German Federal Garden Show Society, a replacement is planned for the summer.
Bye bye bautec. The international trade fair for construction and building technology bautec is being discontinued due to a lack of economic viability. bautec took place for the last time from February 18 to 21, 2020 and will not be continued in the future, according to the official press release from Messe Berlin. It is with a heavy heart that we at the G+L editorial team say “Bye bye” to the ZukunftStadt@GRÜNBAU Berlin lecture event, which we have had the pleasure of organizing as part of bautec in recent years.
Climate protectors wanted for Nord Stream 2. “Wonderful. Have a great start to the week everyone!” Luisa Neubauer commented on Twitter on a current climate protector job advertisement from the MV Climate and Environmental Protection Foundation. The newly established foundation is directly linked to Nord Stream 2 AG. Read all about it here.
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Alpacas for Architecture
#architectureout. “We’re already here” was the headline of the SZ magazine two weeks ago. In it, 185 actors came out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, non-binary and trans*, calling for more diversity in theater, film and television and appealing to other industries to support them. Jørg Himmelreich, former editor-in-chief of archithese, follows the call and defines with his colleagues from NXT A why more visibility of LGBTQ+ is also necessary in the architecture industry.
“Biennale of Landscape” in the Ruhr area. lala.ruhr is a newly founded platform for the sustainable and future-oriented further development of the landscape in the Ruhr area. On February 26 and 27, 2021, lala.ruhr is organizing a landscape festival in virtual space for the first time. Here we tell you why you should definitely take part.
Alpacas for Architecture. The shortlist for the Baumeister competition “The Glorious 5” has been announced. Among them is an alpaca house from A H A Atelier. More about the fluffy project here.
Germany discusses the detached house
Harry Potter and the magic of architecture. The Italian Harry Potter books are no longer adorned with nickel glasses and Nimbus 2000, but with building designs by architect and designer Michele De Lucchi. Why, why, why – we’ll tell you all about it here.
The parking garage crisis. Okay, they’re usually a thorn in the side of us designers, but even we have a soft spot for them somewhere – parking garages. And they and their operators are in quite a crisis in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Our colleagues from ZDF report on how they can be used.
Germany discusses the single-family home. Because the leader of the Green Party, Anton Hofreiter, questioned the single-family home as a form of housing in an interview with Der Spiegel, Germany is currently discussing a ban on this form of housing. Hanno Rautenberg assesses the situation in DIE ZEIT.
Rostock – the nerd city?
Online symposium “LOST & FOUND. Transformation of Alpine Industrial Landscapes”. After three years of the “trAILs” research project, the Chair of Landscape Architecture and Industrial Landscape at the Technical University of Munich is hosting an international online symposium on 1 and 2 March. Also taking part: Danish landscape architect Ellen Braae , who we recently interviewed for the Denmark edition of G+L, and Bernd Scholl, Professor Emeritus of Spatial Planning at ETH Zurich. All information about the symposium can be found here.
Cologne love. Anyone who has ever visited the Rhine metropolis is probably familiar with the Cologne “Liebe deine Stadt” (“Love your city”) sign. Since 2007, the 26-metre-long work of art by Merlin Bauer has enriched the city and is intended to sensitize the people of Cologne to historical architecture. The day before yesterday, construction workers dismantled the sculpture as part of renovation work. It is not yet known when the sign will be returned. Read more here at koeln.de.
Rostock – the nerd city? “In no other German city is the average incidence rate consistently as low as in Rostock”, headlines Spiegel Online this week, referring to the current coronavirus figures for the city in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. We spoke to Anja Epper, Head of Department at the Rostock Office for Urban Development, Planning and Economics, about what the pandemic means for the BUGA 2025 in Rostock and what other projects are currently keeping the Hanseatic city busy .
Three years without the Pompidou Center
New sponge city guide for local authorities and planners. Bavaria’s Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber presented the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection’s new brochure on “Water-sensitive settlement development” last week. You can download the brochure here.
Allotment garden sales stop in Vienna. In order to prevent speculation due to rising land prices, Vienna’s Deputy Mayor and Housing Councillor Katrin Gaál (SPÖ) announced on Monday that the responsible committee will decide to stop the sale of allotment gardens at the end of February 2021. The aim is to protect the use of green spaces for future generations. Read more from our colleagues at Der Standard.
Three years without the Pompidou Center. Okay, it’s still a while away, but before the Centre Pompidou closes at the end of 2023 for refurbishment, we’d like to see the Parisian architectural icon once again. We report on what will happen to the center here.
National congress: Rethinking our country!
The ten healthiest cities in the world. How high is the air pollution in my city? Are there enough green spaces? A new study reveals which cities are the healthiest to live in worldwide. Find out more from our colleagues at NXT A.
National congress: Rethinking our country! The architecture congress “ARCHIKON 2021 – Landeskongress für Architektur und Stadtentwicklung: Unser Land neu denken!” will take place on 25.02.21. The online event will focus on issues relating to the sustainable design of rural areas. Find out more from our colleagues at “Internet for Architects”.
German Architecture Prize 2021
With “Aahhh” and “Oh” to the DAM Prize 2021. The DAM Prize 2021 goes to MVRDV and N-V-O NUYKEN VON OEFELE ARCHITEKTEN for WERK 12 in Munich. Everything about the exceptional project here at NXT A.
German Architecture Prize 2021. The BIM and the BAK have jointly announced the German Architecture Prize 2021. The state prize is the most important award for architects in Germany and will be awarded for the sixth time this year. You can find everything about the award here.
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