Authors: Lorenz Brösch, Sophie Held, Linda Kühnel, Nick Roberts-Robbins, Anna Sadaei, and Mona Siemers.
This is a project about the importance of soil, within an architectural context, in bringing about transformative change in urban ecology. It is focused in particular on the mitigation of heat island effects within the urban context. It proposes a range of srategies for adapting local urban climates to the negative effects of climate change.Good planting is essential to urban health, and healthy plants are dependent on healthy soils.
As well as providing shade, water stored in soils is transpired by vegetation or evaporated by airflows to cool the urban environment. We focus on the development of edge-habitat ecotone systems implemented at the boundary sites of Adlershof to activate cooling pathways through the site.
Changes in soil composition and terrain morphology promote the increased retention of water at the surface level, with increased use of wet-zone planting and better inter-connected waterways, as well as social engagement in the value of wet ecosystems, to promote a revitalised local climate strategy for Adlershof.