Dr. Grit Buergow holds a PhD in urban and landscape design and is co-founder of the design research project ROOF WATER-FARM. Since founding aquatectura in 2002, Grit Bürgow has worked internationally on issues of water- and climate-sensitive design, urban farming and circular economy in neighborhoods, and multifunctional infrastructure development. Her international expertise, with stints in North America, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, includes project development and management as well as planning and implementation in the fields of Ecological Engineering & Design, Cradle to Cradle® Design, Sustainable Watershed and Resource Management, and Landscape and Greenhouse Construction.
Since 2013, Grit Bürgow has been active in teaching and research at the TU Berlin. She coordinated the transdisciplinary pilot research of ROOF WATER FARM at the chair of Urban Design and Human Settlements. She initiated the project as part of her dissertation on urban aquaculture and blue-green infrastructures and successfully developed together with partners from research and practice. Today, ROOF WATER-FARM, located in Berlin-Kreuzberg and not far from Potsdamer Platz, is a living lab of the StadtManufaktur Berlin. As the owner, aquatectura is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the RWF greenhouse, which is now a co-creative innovation and communication site for the circular and climate city in the middle of Berlin.
Currently, Grit Bürgow’s design-research interests lie in the design, construction and operation of mobile blue-green infrastructures and their participatory implementation with schools, educational institutions and businesses. She collaboratively researches and develops hydroponic farm systems from vertical to floating and climate modules acting as green sponge structures such as urban wetlands or mini-moors combined with sustainable water recycling, in the context of the BMBF project Gartenleistungen. The “Shower-Tower” – a hydroponic vertical farm irrigated with recycled graywater from the athletes showers of the BEACH 61 volleyball facility in Berlin’s Gleisdreieckpark – is a product of a design-build studio format with students, which grew into the StartUp and RWF-SpinOff HydroTower. In the meantime, Beach 61 operates the BeachFarm incl. shower water treatment itself, and the project is a real laboratory for Mobile Blue-Green Infrastructure of the StadtManufaktur at the TU Berlin.
Dr. Anja Brüll is a landscape architect holding a PhD in environmental planning. Since co-founding aquatectura in 2002, Anja Brüll has worked internationally on topics of regenerative landscape design and integrated water, land and resource management, e.g. in the context of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, in European research projects or in management consultancy. As a freelancer and partner in various engineering consortia, she has also gained experience in project and quality management, and in construction management. Renewable energy and cycle systems, such as building-integrated photovoltaics and Solar Aquatics, are also part of her practice.
Based on the controversy about the sustainability of bioenergy (plate-tank debate), Anja Brüll developed a concept for a Landscape Quality Management (LQM) at the Institute for Sustainability Governance at the Leuphana University of Lueneburg as part of her dissertation on the topic of sustainable biomass (re)production. By investigating and relating different scientific and policy approaches – such as natural productivity and (re)productive economics with landscape functions, ecosystem services and landscape quality objectives – she developed a standardised, adaptive stakeholder process for assessing and designing sustainable (re)production systems. She shows how biomass management can function as green infrastructure and highlights the central role of “water as a living agent”.
As a staff member at the Chair of Landscape Architecture at RWTH Aachen University, she continued her research on landscape governance in the European ESPON project LP3LP – Landscape Policy for the Three-Country Park. Since 2015, Anja Brüll works for the Euregio Meuse-Rhine as coordinator of the Three-Countries Park, a landscape partnership and platform in the border area of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Here she is dedicated to cross-border cooperation in the sense of the European Landscape Convention. The development of climate-resilient landscapes together with many local and regional actors in the peri-urban area of Liège, Hasselt (BE), Maastricht (NL) and Aachen (DE) is the main focus here (especially since the flood disaster of 2021). But Anja Brüll also brings her broad expertise to bear on other cross-border challenges, such as spatial planning strategies, the heritage of the underground landscape, or the development of euregional and international projects.
Our partner network includes corporate clients, architectural, planning and engineering firms, as well as educational and research institutions and other organisations such as:
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StadtManufaktur c/o TU Berlin I WerkStadtForum Berlin I Dreiländerpark in der Euregio Maas-Rhein I HydroTower – an Urban Farming StartUp and SpinOff of our ROOF WATER-FARM project I Ecological Engineering Network I Netzwerk Innovative Frauen I Cradle to Cradle I EPEA GmbH I hoch C Landschaftsarchitektur, I Peri-urpan Regions Platform Europe I Nolde & Partner Innovative Wasserkonzepte…