The International Garden Exhibition and the new visitor centre for the “Gardens of the World” has not only created a new “honeypot” for garden lovers, but also attractive living space for the people of Berlin-Marzahn. The designer and the builder-owner deliberately opted for robust, durable, and sustainable materials as well as for unique roof greening, turning the roof – waterproofed with EVALASTIC – into an experimental ground for biodiversity.
Most people will probably know Berlin-Marzahn because of a certain “Cindy”. However, this fails the significance of this city quarter, which has been part of Berlin since 1920. After all, the centre of the quarter, which dates back to a medieval village, has been under heritage protection for decades. Marzahn has already been rather famous in times of the German Democratic Republic, with the largest prefab panel housing estate of the same name in the former GDR having been built in this place. What is less well known, at least in the western part of Germany, is that the Berlin Garden Show was laid out in Marzahn at the end of the 1980s to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin. Today’s Marzahn Recreation Park is centred around the hill of Kienberg. With an original height of 15 metres, the hill was formed in the Ice Age. Refuse as well as demolition and excavation waste made the “mountain” grow by another 50 metres in height in GDR times.
Today, the Kienberg and its surroundings are a design highlight of the quarter. On the occasion of the International Garden Exhibition IGA 2017, almost 60 hectares were newly developed, cultivated and integrated. The “Gardens of the World” alone contributed 43 hectares as part of the Marzahn Recreation Park. Creative directors and Berlin landscape architects Christof Geskes and Kristina Hack managed to integrate existing and new areas into one single garden landscape. Importantly, the designers were thinking bigger than “just” the 185-day exhibition from Easter to October. Rather, the expansion of the gardens brings lasting benefit to the city quarter, struggling with both infrastructural and societal disruption.
The master plan included a large number of design and construction measures, ranging from an “English Garden” (construction started in 2013), a new open-air stage, a children’s playground, water worlds, themed gardens and a tropical dome to a new visitor centre. So far, around 800,000 visitors have come to experience the “Gardens of the World” every year; during and after the IGA, this number is expected to increase significantly. This is one of the reasons why a new visitor centre has been built, which is also serving as the main entrance on Blumberger Damm.
With a view to sustainability, the architects deliberately opted for robust, durable, and sustainable materials because they are easy to clean and keep their appearance well over time. The same goes for the roughly 2,000 m² of waterproofing on the extensively greened flat roof of the visitor centre. The builder-owner and the designer opted for EVALASTIC, the world's only homogeneously weldable EPDM waterproofing membrane.
Apart from homogeneous weldability, above all, the ecological profile of the EVALASTIC® system makes it so unique among all the modern synthetic and elastomeric roofing membranes. The high-performance roofing and waterproofing membrane is absolutely free of chlorine as well as of any chlorinated organic compounds. In Marzahn, on top of the high-quality, root- and rhizome-resistant EVALASTIC® waterproofing a unique green roof was installed.
The German Roof Gardeners Association, in cooperation with trade and industry partners, has installed various biodiversity modules turning the nearly 2,000 m² of roof area into an experimental field for biodiversity. Importantly, various layout measures as well as consideration of basic biodiversity principles are particularly important for promoting the biotope function of green roof areas. On the visitor centre rooftop, a variety of different biodiversity modules is complementing the conventional extensive green roof, including height modulation of the topsoil layer, substrate quality enhancement, unvegetated areas such as sand flats and gravel patches, temporary water areas, special plant selection, nesting aids for insects and dead wood piles. These measures are expected to help the roof of the visitor centre over time to develop into a particularly species-rich and ecologically valuable habitat. Visitors can enjoy the roof from a platform next to the building.
| Construction site information | ||
| Object | Visitor Centre “Gardens of the World”, IGA 2017, Berlin | |
| Builder-owner | Grün Berlin GmbH, Berlin | |
| Architect | ww+ architects, Esch-sur-Alzette; Prof. Junker + Kollegen landscaping architects | |
| Roofinh | Kühne Roof Systems GmbH, Chemnitz | |
| Material | EVALASTIC® V 1.5 mm | |
| Type of construction | New build | |
| Date of construction | 2017 | |
| Roof area | 2.000 |
