The City as a Sponge

The project "The City as a Sponge" took place as part of the linked modules "Open Space and Landscape" for master's students in architecture and "Resource Landscape" for bachelor's students in spatial planning. The didactic goals in this repeated coupling are to connect competencies, promote integrative planning ideas, and stimulate professional dialogue between participants from both study programs. In mixed teams, students collaboratively develop strategies for dealing with current challenges in open space planning in urban agglomerations and create ideas and designs for implementing design measures based on a specific study area.

The thematic focus in 2020 was on the question of how cities should be designed in the future to counteract the trend of urban overheating and address the challenges of future water management. Concrete concepts were developed to mitigate the overheating of urban spaces and promote sustainable water management in urban agglomerations. The use of nature-based solutions to secure and enhance existing green and blue infrastructure, the integration of larger and smaller green spaces, and the utilization and optimization of existing open spaces and other elements in the street space played a significant role.

The results were accessible throughout the summer in an exhibition at Garage Grande.