Art Kallen


PEOPLE’S UNIVERSITY BERLIN

At the edge of Westhafen in Berlin lies the  PUSUDD. The People’s University for Sustainable Urban Dwelling and Development. It is not by chance that the PUSUDD lies here, this is an area in the city where nature is confronted with the most intense kind of built form. The built environment here was not made for people to live in, but it was infrastructure to keep the city running. In that perspective it is clear that no nature of green was needed here.

The building for the PUSUDD takes these two elements (nature and built form) and brings them together in synthesis, as it should go in good dialectic form.

The building is imposed on the site here, but it is set up for nature to have it’s go. Pillars in the water make that it becomes a calm corner of the Westhafen, so nature can go about building up soil and starting to grow wetlands. First underwater and eventually above water. At the same time there are wetlands on top of the roofs. Over time at the edges of the roof algae begin to gather and drip down. This way the built form and nature eventually merge into a synthesis for the future. Which is exactly the kind of examples that the PUSUDD would like to set for the urban context of Berlin.