Client: Freunde der Johannes Schule e.V.
Design team: Kersten-Kopp (architects), IFB (structure), ZWP (building technology), Lysann Schmidt in collaboration with Gruppe F (landscape architects)
My role: Project Landscape architect (Design Development to site supervision)
Location: Berlin-Schöneberg, Germany
Date: 2015-16
Surface: 6.300 m²
Budget: 301.000€ excl. VAT (landscape works, 1.construction phase)
The Waldorf Campus in Berlin shows how to create an inspiring learning environnement for children from the age of 1 to 18 years in spite of a very tight budget. To achieve the final result, we not only had to come up with a suitable design for the exterior espaces of the school and the kinder garden, but also find a viable solution for its feasibility. Therefore 2 design elements became the engine of our approach from the design phase up to the final completion: to create a decentralised sustainable rain water infiltration system for all the rainwater of the project (hard surfaces and building roofs) and make full use of the imagination and helpful hands of the children, parents and teachers. The traditional procedures of designing, tender und construction work where therefore minimised to the purely technical works such as access roads for fire engines, infiltration Swales and wells for extinguishing water. Not only all the planting works were carried out by children, teachers and parents. A variety of play areas were designed and built by them, where we as landscape architects stepped back and only assisted in the process. As sustainability is also part of the general education program at the Waldorf school system, it was only natural to minimise impermeable surfaces und use local materials wherever possible. The on site cut material (e.g. from foundation excavations) where also reused for the play landscapes to reduce costs.