Vegetation management is a method of design combining human impacts and natural processes and offers an impression of the dynamics of nature. Impacts/disturbance In order to avoid the colonisation of woody plants like birches, the plant cover is partially removed at periodic intervals. Once again, mine spoil is heaped on the site and pioneer habitats […]
Category: Wild Urban Woodlands
Deceleration of vegetation development
The vegetation development is slowed by heaping blast-furnace slag. This material offers an unfavourable growing medium with extremely alkaline conditions which have a toxic effect on plants, especially on deep-rooting species. These extreme habitat conditions lead to a low rate of succession. First mosses, e. g. Ceratodon purpureus and Bryum argenteum, colonise the slag substrate […]
Organisation: zonation
The water formations of the PLAIN provide the design framework. They structure and divide the area. Within this framework, the catwalk, steel – paths and lens viewpoints present fixed points. Fig. 8. Plan of the study site The focus of the vegetation management is directed at primary stages of succession—from mosses to annuals to perennials—in […]
MtCRO-View
Analogously to the MACRO-view, the MICRO-view is established and alienated. In the lens boxes of the catwalk, Fresnel lenses also facilitate the ZOOM into the formations of the PLAIN and allow for discovery of the “form within the form”, in accordance with the phenomenon of self-similarity. On the ground level of the PLAIN, viewpoints with […]
The phenomenon of change
A further aspect of the PLAIN of the sinking pond is the phenomenon of change. All the elements, the existing water areas supplied by rainwater, as well as the added elements like the bulk heaps and the vegetation, are characterised by change. The vegetation varies in expanse, coverage and shape. More changes become perceptible through […]
The phenomenon of self-similarity
The black PLAIN of the former sinking pond resembles a lunar landscape and forms a contrast to the surrounding landscape of the Saarkohlenwald woodlands. The completely open space of about 20 hectares appears as a huge plain lacking human scale, structured only by the water-areas. In the contours of the water areas of the PLAIN, […]
Post-industrial nature
Many mining areas in the Saarland have been recultivated with woody plants and are therefore hardly recognisable within the surrounding landscape of the Saarkohlenwald woodlands. The goal of this project is to preserve the landscape formations, such as the mine slagheap and the filled-in sinking pond as a testimony to the industrial history and to […]
Post-Industrial Nature in the Coal Mine of Gottelborn, Germany: The Integration of Ruderal Vegetation in the Conversion of a Brownfield
Justina Drexler Department of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning, TU Munchen Context This paper describes a design project that illustrates the integration of ruderal vegetation in the conversion of a mining brownfield in the Saarland, Germany. The coal mine of Gottelborn is located on the periphery of the state capital of the Saarland, 15 km […]
Applicability
What can be applied in other cities or regions? Clearly such a fortunate case as the IBA Emscher Park with its start-up financing to serve as a catalyst occurs only rarely. Of course, the foresters entail labor costs— nevertheless, the development and maintenance of these sites is many times more cost-effective than conventional green spaces […]
The implementation
The idea of nurtured development, of maintenance and cultivation, quickly brought the historic image of the forester into the minds of the parties involved in the IBA Emscher Park. The employment of foresters in the abandoned areas is a logical step for the process of succession towards the forest, a process which happens relatively quickly […]