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In the project “Imagine Green Urban Futures”, the lala.ruhr initiative and the Places _ VR Festival want to work together with innovative urban designers to discover new possibilities for making cities, streets, buildings and open spaces better and more sustainable. With the help of augmented reality technology (AR), they want to show on site how a city can change positively. Apply now with your idea, become part of the “Imagine Green Urban Futures” project, receive €1,000 and implement your 3D model that visitors to the Places _ VR Festival can test and experience it in AR! The deadline for applications is July 11, 2021.

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Competition for Urban Designers

The initiators of the project and the competition are looking for tech-savvy (landscape) architects, urban planners, designers and innovators of all kinds to develop their vision for a 120-year-old street in Gelsenkirchen based on existing 3D data. The 3D models will then be converted into an AR application by technology partner cityscaper and can be explored by visitors to the Places _ VR Festival (Sept. 17 & 18, 2021) via smartphone or tablet.

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What is lala.ruhr?

lala.ruhr – the laboratory for the landscape of the ruhr metropolis – is dedicated to an integrated view of the transformation of the urban landscape of the Ruhr region, where people, buildings and landscape are symbiotic, resilient and sustainable, offering a high quality of life. A creative laboratory space is being created in which ideas and innovative concepts for the future of the Metropole Ruhr are discussed and developed under the guiding principle of a productive landscape. They promote exchange across geographical and intellectual boundaries and bundle and network the region’s potential in an international context.

For more information and how to apply – click here.

The Museum of Modern Art announced the establishment of the Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment, following a donation from Emilio Ambasz. One of the focal points of the newly founded institute is to make the interaction between architecture and ecology visible and accessible to museum visitors and the public.

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The Argentinean Emilio Ambasz wants to further develop and enrich the global debate on the urgent need for an ecological recalibration together with the MoMA. The general aims of the Institute are to promote dialogue, stimulate discussion and facilitate research into the relationship between the built and the natural environment through a series of curatorial programmes and research initiatives. The Ambasz Institute will focus in particular on digital initiatives in order to both advance a global conversation on this crucial issue and to ensure that the Institute reaches a diverse audience.

Ecological Future and Environmental Justice

The Institute, to be located on MoMA’s Midtown Manhattan campus within the Department of Architecture and Design, will specifically study creative approaches to design at all scales of the built environment — buildings, cities, landscapes, and objects — in order to work toward an ecological future and environmental justice.

The establishment of the Ambasz Institute offers an important opportunity for MoMA to continue its global leadership on sustainability issues while celebrating and cultivating a deeper public understanding of architecture and design. Research opportunities and a variety of programs including public lectures, conferences and symposia, many of them online, will bring together and prompt conversations amongst architects, designers, policy makers, social thinkers, historians, and the general public.

Emilio Ambasz and The MoMa

Emilio Ambasz has been working closely with The Museum of Modern Art for more than five decades. As Curator of Design in the Museum’s Department of Architecture and Design from 1969 to 1976, he organized several groundbreaking exhibitions and authored their accompanying publications. As a pioneering industrial designer and architect, Emilio Ambasz is also represented through more than 20 works in the Museum’s Architecture & Design and Media & Performance Art Collections.

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‘The messiah of green architecture’

Ambasz has designed projects all across the globe that have become benchmarks and provided inspiration for modern green architecture. That’s why some people, including James Wines in his book Green Architecture, call him “the messiah of green architecture”. This year is the 25th anniversary of the inauguration of the ACROS centre in Fukuoka (Japan), one of the most innovative, spectacular and best-known green buildings in the world, designed by Emilio Ambasz. One time he says: “Every building is an intrusion into the plant kingdom and is a challenge to nature: we must devise an architecture that stands as the embodiment of a reconciliatory pact between nature and construction, designing buildings so intrinsically connected to their surroundings that they are unable to disentangle themselves from each other.”

If you are more interested in green innovations and technologies, it is worth reading topos 112 on ‘green technologies’.

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Text Credits: MoMA press release.

Bibliography of the following articles:

p. 26
Mannigfaltig, kosmopolitisch, schön
Prof. Dr. Sören Schöbel, TU Munich

p. 54
Vielfalt fördern
Prof. Dr. Constanze A. Petrow

p. 60
Stadtgrün im (Klima)Wandel
Prof. Dr. Norbert Kühn

p. 90
Gerechte Zukunft für die Stadt
Dr. Henrike Knappe

A green learning oasis in Berlin-Kreuzberg by Gruppe F offers the students of Galilei primary school an interactive space for learning and playing in the open. In 2015, Gruppe F won the ideas competition for the green classroom and realized the project between fall 2017 and spring 2018.

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Wild grass, huge plants, and colorful blossoms adorn the raised flower beds around the Green Classroom of the Gailei Schule in Berlin-Kreuzberg. When walking through the school’s entrance, one would not expect such a green retreat on the school premises amidst the hustle and bustle of the city.  After wriggling through the building and crossing the second part of the courtyard, one reach the school garden. Here it is obvious that the concept of the Green Classroom is used and embraced even one year after its introduction.

In 2015, an ideas competition for the Green Classroom was held. Back then, the site contained a small pond. When landscape designers Gruppe F won said competition, the pond and a wall were removed and the green learning venue for the students of the Galilei primary school was realized between fall 2017 and spring 2018.

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Outdoor Classes

On an area of 0.3 hectare, classes can take place here in the fresh air. Instead of chairs, students use sitting steps and wooden beams that are shaded by two willow trees and offer space for an entire class. The raised beds in the sun house a variety of different plants and those in the shade contain berry fields.  A gardening shed and compost patch complete the green learning learning oasis.

Urban Space as an Interactive Learning Venue

In the Green Classroom, theory meets practice. Subjects discussed in class can be illustrated with real examples and put into practice.
In addition, students can pitch in themselves and learn how to take care of plants. The beds are assigned to different classes, so that a variety of colorful flower boxes has grown.

This way, the Green Classroom not only is an alternative classroom but also an interactive and social learning venue for the students.
Especially for cities like Berlin that offer little room for private gardening, the Galilei School’s project is the perfect opportunity to teach young students about nature and spark their interest in gardening.