A story of Roman aqueducts When in Rome … check out the amazing aqueducts! They are not only in that city of course. Most incredible Roman aquaeducts are actually all over Europe, like the Pont du Gard, the Valens aqueduct (part of a 240 km conduit), the Aqueduct of Segovia, the Pont des les Ferreres … Read more Why you don’t want your toilet to fail
In the context of the lifetimes of trees or even the planet, human lives are very short. Even doubling our life expectancy in the last 100 years (world average 1900: 31y, 2014: 71.5y) has done little to change the role that the limitation of our time on this earth plays in our lives. Most of … Read more Designing with Time
The “Emscher Umbau” project is a unique river restoration project. The timeframe and budget are mind boggling: 30 years of planning and construction, 4.5 billion € total budget to date. The river runs through one of the most densely populated areas in Europe with long industrial heritage. It’s a project for a whole generation. One … Read more Catchment Restoration of the Emscher
We know now that we need to act on climate change. We probably needed to start acting on it 30 years ago… But at least we have the Paris climate accord since 2016. All countries in the world signed it. The USA, unfortunately, left later because they thought the atmosphere is about “fairness”. Unfortunately, the Paris climate agreement … Read more Tesla & Co: Electric cars and the communist future
I met Thami Croeser at Roof Water Farm in Berlin to learn more about green infrastructure initiatives around the world. Thami is replication lead for the Urban Green Up! Project. The project is funded by the EU Horizon 2020 fund and aims at the development, application and replication of Renaturing Urban Plans in a number … Read more Lead with beauty
Who has the right to the land and its space? Spaces can feel different depending on how they are managed. Roaming Germany and many other countries in Europe allow you to walk across other people’s land without fear of getting shot. It’s romantically called ‘the right to roam ’ in England. In Germany, you can only … Read more Maintenance of the commons
I am an engineer. Supposedly people don’t expect much finesse from engineers. What do you think about, when you hear that something is “engineered”? It sounds like it is shiny, efficient, somehow made from stainless steel and works well. I don’t particularly associate “engineered” items with how they look and definitely not with how they … Read more Why design matters
The road used to be for pedestrians first, then carts, horses and donkeys joined a bit later. Then came the bicycle, the tramcar, the petrol car and the truck. Mostly in that order. Some places have sledges and skis as well apparently. Boats maybe too? Concepts for streets The street used to be a place … Read more Sharing is caring. Just not while moving.
My daily train departs the city every 50 minutes. It is quite handy not to miss it. Countdown to my daily train departure home: T-16 min I wanted to do some last minute shopping. I enter the market, buy a few things I want to eat this weekend. Pay, smile to the cashier as he … Read more In a rush
Designing a road for traffic is much like designing a pipe for water flow. The first hint is the similarity of language used. In traffic engineering they talk about traffic waves, traffic flows or traffic stream. I especially like “Jam Density”. Yum. They even use similar mathematical models as in hydrodynamics. Cars move in packs, like water … Read more Peak Hour