The first half of today, we did an urban design workshop.
We took 4 areas/intersections/conditions in the neighborhood, and worked in teams to talk through challenges of access, based on different personas (wheelchair users, family with small children, etc). We then redesigned them, with a focus on people first, earth second, transit third.
One interesting takeaway was that in Europe, they minimize signage…their focus is on creating directions for use organically – the design should tell you how to operate within the space, versus overloading areas with signage that actually distracts users, especially drivers.
We also had an in depth conversation about heat impacts on people. From 2018-2020, 19,000 people died in Germany with heat related deaths. Our speaker pointed out that if it were an infectious disease killing that many people, it would be a huge crisis. Part of the problem with understanding the issue is how deaths are recorded. The example was, you can say someone died because their heart stopped. You’re not talking about WHY their heart stopped.
We broke into smaller groups to walk to lunch, and shared some of the things we’ve found as simple but incredible here.
For instance, in all of the offices we’ve been in, their windows are open. In the states, most windows in office buildings don’t open. We had a great discussion about our reliance on air conditioning and how temperature sensitive we are at home.
And 5 of us had a photo of this- though all different stairwells. It’s really common on steps to have these ramps; they’re used commonly for families with strollers., but can also be used for skateboarders, cyclists, etc.
Landscape Rebellion
We asked a speaker yesterday about their parks. They’re a bit wild, versus feeling manicured. It felt like we had caused offense, and possibly an international incident? All the speakers for the rest of the day brought it up.
Today, our guide said yes, it is wild. “We never want to be mistaken for Munich.”
German post! (This one was in a convenience store)
Tiergarten
This is a fairly large urban park, which they say is similar to Central Park. These trees are all relatively young; after the war, they were all cut down for fuel.
Column of victory /victory column/column of triumph
Rose garden
Russian memorial. I visited this on Monday (which is good, because it is fenced off today, for a marathon). The monument was in West Berlin, but Russians guarded it. What I didn’t know is that across from the monument, in the 80s, someone tried to kill one of the guards! They shot and wounded them, so then the path in the park was blocked off for about 10 years.
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