Category New Waterscapes

Children like asking questions, and sometimes they ask a lot. Adults don’t always like explaining things, rarely do it vividly and sometimes not at all – if they don’t know the answer. This is why children’s playgrounds exist. They can look for things to do there, set them­selves problems and work out how to solve them. Water is always on the move, creates a path for itself, comes to the surface, collects, seeps away – and raises questions. How does water come to the surface, why does it flow in the way it does, where do I stand in the cycle of coming to the surface and running away?

A water playground in the South German town of Pforzheim tries to pro­vide answers to these many questions.

It stands on the northern edge of the Black Forest, and in 1992 staged the regional ho...

Industrial regions such as the Ruhr Valley, one of Europe’s biggest industrial conglomerations with a population just under 4 million, have decidedly improved the level of affluence and comfort of our Western civilization.

In many incidences, this industrial improvement has been at the cost of the environment and natural resources, and many healthy rivers have been sacrificed along the way. 100 years ago, the river Emscher wound its way through an intact river meadow and wetland habitat. As a consequence of coal mining, the land sunk and the river Emscher came to serve as sewerage and general rubbish canal. The result was regular and putrid flooding. In those days, the solution was to build dykes and fortified river walls...

For a dyke control and sewerage utility company in Amsterdam, expectations are high in regards to the stormwater management of its own sites, plants and buildings. DWR Amsterdam intended to meet and exceed these expectations with the design and construction of its new headquarters on the River Amstel, setting an example for excellent water practice.

The new building is fronted by a large water basin, with one of the two high-rise towers propped directly above the water. The basin is multifunctional. On one hand, it detains stormwater run­off from the site before slowly releasing it to the river Amstel...

On many issues Neu-Ulm is over­shadowed and out-muscled by her elder, bigger sister, Ulm. The two cities are physically separated by the river Danube and politically by the state boundary; Neu-Ulm is in Bavaria, Ulm in Baden-Wurttemberg. Ulm is a historic town, severely bombed during World War II. Neu-Ulm was largely constructed after the war and retains the character of a suburb, rather than a town in its own right. This is however a unique (now ‘historic’) urban style and has a rough, strangely appealing charm. The Neu-Ulm train station was demolished and put underground, which opened the opportunity for a signature urban renewal project, the redesign of the Heiner-Metzger Plaza in front of the former train station...

Water glides softly through stone channels, makes a pleasing sound in little waterfalls then disappears again among the aquatic plants. The sound brings a sense of magic to the space, and life into the old people’s home.

For people who like to have greenery around them the Nicolaus-Cusanus – Haus in Stuttgart offers an internal space with a lot of plants, thus bringing nature even to those who are confined and can only control how they spend their own time to a limited extent: the occupants of old people’s homes and nursing-homes. The first impression is that of being in the tropical house in a botanical garden, though without the greenhouse atmosphere that quickly drives Western Europeans back out into the fresh air...

People wonder about the source of major rivers from time to time. And there are some that do not have a source at all. The Weser, for example.

It seems that it got its name because people could not agree whether the river should be called the Fulda or the Werra from the point at which they meet in Hannoversch Munden. This town, now called Hann. Munden for short, is near Kassel, and – as is the case with many places on rivers – water is very impor­tant, bringing great happiness and great misery. And yet the two rivers that meet here flow past behind the old town, and are quite insignificant for it and in the awareness of many people.

A well as three rivers, the town also has three connected squares in the heart of the old quarter: Kirchplatz, the square between the church and ...