Within the bounds of the GRAD- Stra­tegy of Green Roofs pro­ject, repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of 8 pilot cities under­took a stu­dy tour to Ham­burg on June 5 and 6, 2019. During this trip, they lear­ned more about the deve­lo­p­ment of the city’s green roof stra­tegy, obser­ved how it is chan­ging the urban land­scape, and visi­ted fasci­na­ting objects with green roofs and vivid walls. The­se are beco­ming more num­e­rous every year — the city of Hamburg’s goal is to cover urban are­as of up to 100 hec­ta­res with vege­ta­ti­on. New green roofs are being built on both public and pri­va­te buil­dings — resi­den­ti­al and com­mer­cial — and a signi­fi­cant num­ber of them are open to the public.

In 2005, the “Gar­dens of Urban Rede­ve­lo­p­ment” pro­ject brought a breath of fresh air to Lei­p­­zig-Grün­au. A high­light of this pro­ject was the “Wert­stoff­gar­ten” — a one-week work­shop, which we con­duc­ted in coope­ra­ti­on with cet‑0 and Susan­ne Schnor­busch and about 20 resi­dents of Bra­cke­stra­ße 50 on the plot. Our focus was on the crea­ti­ve use of for­got­ten mate­ri­als from the decon­s­truc­tion of pre­fa­bri­ca­ted buil­dings. Each ele­ment had the poten­ti­al to have its own the­me or alter­na­ti­ve use. A plat­form of recy­cled slats ser­ved as a stage for the trans­for­ma­ti­on of the­se mate­ri­als. Here, art was crea­ted from raw mate­ri­als, and the mini-work­­shop pul­sed with crea­ti­vi­ty. We crea­ted the pos­si­bi­li­ty of trans­forming the tem­po­ra­ry cha­rac­ter of the “recy­cl­ables gar­den” into a per­ma­nent use if the­re was inte­rest. Mate­ri­als and equip­ment could be given to users for their ide­as. The results of the work­shop were pre­sen­ted in an exhi­bi­ti­on. Sel­ec­ted forms were trans­for­med in real time on site during the work­shop, which could be expe­ri­en­ced as a per­for­mance. The­se trans­for­med forms were even­tual­ly inte­gra­ted as design ele­ments in the gar­dens and open spaces of the resi­den­ti­al land­scape to pro­mo­te sus­tainable chan­ge.