theory & concepts

Urban Development Program for the Green City of the Future

Urban Development Program for the Green City of the Future

Webinar at 18.03.2025, 17.00 hrs with Mathias Lehner, MSc Mathias Lehner reports on his work on the 2040-2050 urban development plan for Zaanstad, a neighboring city of Amsterdam with 160,000 inhabitants that is set to grow rapidly to 200,000. This spatial vision for...

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The Healing Garden Hamburg – Nature Cyclical Impulses for the Urban World

The Healing Garden Hamburg – Nature Cyclical Impulses for the Urban World

The rapid urbanization and digitalization of our living environments increasingly alienates us from nature, thereby impairing our physical, mental, and emotional well-being. The association “heilende Stadt e.V.” is establishing a model project called the Healing Garden Hamburg in the Altona People’s Park, focusing on nurturing the relationship between nature and humans – as a physical-sensory experience, ‘holistic’ (from the Greek ‘holos’ = whole) with a new “nature cyclical” mindset.

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Renaturation in the City

Renaturation in the City

DI Wolfgang Suske, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna The Restoration Act obliges EU member states to take measures to restore destroyed ecosystems. At least 20% of the EU's land and sea areas are to be restored by 2030, with the aim of...

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Antennas into the future from science, philosophy and art

Antennas into the future from science, philosophy and art

Is there a fundamental flaw in our Western thinking that has led us into the current complex crisis of climate change, loss of biodiversity and scarcity of resources? What can we do, what must we do to come to terms with nature and its great, overarching cycles in a densely populated world? Because this is entirely possible if we make a number of adjustments to our living conditions… including for urban life: the dense city can become nature, in whose great, overarching context we integrate: the city as a biotope, Biotope City.

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Climate Change and Target-Oriented Adaptation Measures 

Climate Change and Target-Oriented Adaptation Measures 

Prof. Helga Kromp-Kolb, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna Now available on our YouTube channel:  Climate Change and Target-Oriented Measures If you subscribe to the YOUTUBE CHANNEL BIOTOPE-CITY JOURNAL, you won't miss anything, and you will be...

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THE LOWLINE AIMS HIGH

THE LOWLINE AIMS HIGH

Photo on top: The current abandoned Williamsburg Trolley Terminal space Click on images to enlarge them. They will appear in a new tab. After years of planning, another ambitious project rivaling the Highline in all its aspects, both good and bad – is being realized...

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Building Greening and Fire Protection

Building Greening and Fire Protection

An important topic! The City of Vienna recently introduced new subsidy regulations for the greening and unsealing of buildings - they are exemplary and will certainly lead to a surge in greening, especially in private buildings. And hopefully also provide an impetus...

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The production of the future: urban planning in civil society

The production of the future: urban planning in civil society

This text was published in 1997 in the anthology ‘Zivile Gesellschaft’ (Civil Society) edited by Schmals/Heinelt. 25 years later, it is amazing how accurately the necessity of the urban development strategies outlined for solving urban problems were described back then – and at the same time it is shocking how little of the outlined solution strategies, having lost none of their validity, have penetrated into the reality of society and its planning. Yet such a form of planning would be more necessary than ever in order to put a stop to the problems of nature destruction with its biodiversity and climate change on the one hand and the increasing lack of natural resources and space on the other. It is worth reading!

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Regarder vers l’avenir – tirer les leçons du passé

Regarder vers l’avenir – tirer les leçons du passé

Amsterdam 1671-1672 La 'baie d'or' du Herengracht. Peinture de Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde, Gemeente Museum Amsterdam Le développement d'Amsterdam au 17e siècle comme paradigme de l'urbanisme bleu-vert et un exemple réussi à Vienne aujourd'hui Rien ne semble plus...

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Looking back to the future – learning from the past

Looking back to the future – learning from the past

Amsterdam 1671-1672 The 'Golden Bay' of the Herengracht. Painting by Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam On the development of Amsterdam in the 17th century as a paradigm of blue-green urban planning and on a successful example in today's Vienna...

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Towards an URBAN FUTURE: BIOTOPE CITY

Towards an URBAN FUTURE: BIOTOPE CITY

Building the city of the future – a common saying. But what is really happening? Do we realise what the requirements of the future will be? Cities and city districts have to be built with a time horizon of centuries. We have to build the city of the future TODAY. But what does the future look like that we have to build for? What are its demands?

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Vers l’AVENIR URBAIN: BIOTOPE CITY

Vers l’AVENIR URBAIN: BIOTOPE CITY

La biodiversité menacée et l’expansion croisante des villem- quoi faire? Considérer la ville elle-même comme une forme de nature et donner de l’espace à la nature sous ses diverses formes dans l’environnement construit. C’est ‘voir la ville comme un biotope’, Biotope City. Conclure un contrat social avec la nature !

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The Invasion of Nature into the City

The Invasion of Nature into the City

Integrating biodiverse nature into urban areas: What is possible? What is desirable? How does one do it? Does it even make sense? Rules of the game for citizens and professionals in planning, design and maintenance. Prof.Dr. Helga Fassbinder, Foundation Biotope City...

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Fire protection with facade greening

Fire protection with facade greening

Dr. Dieter Werner, Testing, Inspection and Certification Body of the City of Vienna, Head of the Building Physics Laboratory Is facade greening a fire hazard? The City of Vienna has been investigating the fire behavior of facade greening since 2015. In the meantime,...

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Urban industrial areas as ecological potential

Urban industrial areas as ecological potential

by dr. ir. Robbert Snep, Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands On the youtube canal of BIOTOPE CITY JOURNAL : https://www.youtube.com/@biotopecityjournal8524 At a rapid pace, we are still sealing huge areas of land every day - in Austria, this amounted to...

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Wildlife in The City

Wildlife in The City

The green toad, the field hamster and the alpine bat, many species live next to us in the city.  One man's joy, another man's sorrow? How and why is a rich nature in the city so important on a small and large scale? What opportunities are there for people to...

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Greening Facades – A Historical Introduction

Greening Facades – A Historical Introduction

Greening buildings has a long tradition and has been practiced for thousands of years: it has many advantages – not only aesthetically, but also in terms of its effects on the environment and health. Recently, it has experienced a revival due to climate change.

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CLIMATE CHANGE and GENDER

CLIMATE CHANGE and GENDER

The lecture is now online on our youtube channel ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxCE5njoksg The effects of climate change are not felt equally by everyone. Women, and particularly women from the Global South, are disproportionately affected by climate change and...

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Sociocratic Neighbourhood Circles   SoNeC

Sociocratic Neighbourhood Circles SoNeC

SoNeC is a 26 month-long Erasmus+ project including Biotope City. It is funded by the EU’s “KA2 Strategic Partnerships for adult education” program and addresses serious social and environmental issues by applying neighborhood-based, bottom-up, participatory and inclusive decision making processes.

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Photovoltaic Plantscapes

Photovoltaic Plantscapes

It is a generally accepted requirement that green buildings combined with photovoltaic (PV) energy generation should be increasingly used in cities. However, photovoltaics, the necessary substructure and greening structure must be carefully coordinated. The aim of...

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THE ISLAND OF THE WILD VIENNESE

THE ISLAND OF THE WILD VIENNESE

An uninhabited island in the middle of the big city, where deer and beavers live, where grey herons and cormorants find rich fishing grounds, where marsupial tits build their elaborate nests? A romantic dream? Inner-city nature reserves or fallow land are under high...

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Urban Mining Technical Soils for Biotope Cities

Urban Mining Technical Soils for Biotope Cities

Pia Minixhofer, Bernhard Scharf, Sebastian Hafner, Thomas Romm Growing cities In the coming years, more and more people will live and work in cities (UN 2018). The accompanying need for more housing and infrastructure is causing construction activity to increase....

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SPACE – TIME

SPACE – TIME

Presentation Colette van Landuyt - second participant in QuoVadis? 2222 Summary: The break between space and time in Western culture resulted in a radical break with nature. Nature is not sensitive to ideologies; it does for its effects. GAIA rebels through...

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