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cities are concrete glass and steel they
look and act unnaturally absorbing heat
and repelling water our urban spaces are
at odds with the natural environment but
in parts of the German capital things
are different
to deal with rain water and heat
Berlin's being transformed into what's
being called a sponge city the business
and its response city is the fitness
league Lucinda stood behind when the
Sephardim sit with artists at
color Beck is the architect of Berlin
sponge city strategy which harnesses
rainwater and manages heat that's in
most of Cavalia that's only a few
depends on a MOS in der stadt Leiden in
a natural ecosystem rain waters soaked
up by soil and vegetation the majority
then evaporates and the rest
filters deeper into the ground the
evaporating water then calls the
surroundings cities disrupt this system
water can't soak through the concrete
and is piped away
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the sponge city strategy aims to keep
rainwater where it lands to imitate the
natural water cycle buildings are
covered in green roofs and facades and
down on street level urban wetlands and
roadside trenches known as swales built
a runoff and hold water keeping the city
cool by imitating nature
this is Rawls burg in East Berlin built
20 years ago it's become a large-scale
example of the sponge city concept
top we have extensive green roof of
approximately six to eight centimetres
and from there the water flows into this
courtyard here in the middle and
underneath there is a garage on top of
the underground garage we have a soil
layer of almost 80 centimeters it's like
a sponge and it soaks the water during
every rainfall and then it's used by the
plants so they take all the water and
finally evaporated hiko Sica is the
brains behind the neighborhood's
innovative management of stormwater in
the whole area here we have no storm
sewer system so no conventional pipe
system the water flows from the road
surface into this way and from here it's
infiltrating into the ground on hot
summer days you can really feel the
coolness here it's much cooler compared
to other parts of the city because of
the evaporation you can say it's natural
air-conditioned rooms Berg's just one
example of a sponge city neighborhoods
across Berlin have implemented similar
initiatives
but bolin isn't a perfect sponge city in
the middle of summer 2017 the heaviest
rain in the century hit the city
submerging parts under water and warning
how much work still to do the last nandi
reduce tofu and harden tequila and
possibly envisioning the Dominguez
it's tough you want a politician villain
in fact the City Council's recently
decided all new developments should
manage stormwater on site in the spirit
of the sponge city climate change is
forcing Berlin and many other cities
around the world to adapt urban
environments transforming them to work
with nature not against it
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