German Engineering: Tempelhof Wasserpark

Image: Johanna F. Barthmeier

Last week, the American Society of Landscape Architects announced the winners of the 2011 Student Awards, and a conceptual design for Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, Germany, caught our eye. The site's water management design is based on the folds of a paper airplane; stormwater and groundwater (Berlin lies close to the water table and gets a lot of rainfall) is moved, absorbed, filtered and collected through a zig-zag series of pools, plantings and contoured landforms. In effect, the space would be transformed into an urban water park with swimming areas for recreation and treatment pools for ecological education. Click here for more details on the plan by University of Pennsylvania graduate Johanna F. Barthmeier and a fascinating slideshow—again, this is a design project rather than an actual plan, but it's interesting to see innovative ideas in stormwater management.