Building Exhibition 2020: PIK councils Berlin city government

02/09/2011 - The answers that urban planning can give to questions of climate change are one of the central issues of the International Building Exhibition in 2020, scheduled to happen in Berlin. Fritz Reusswig of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research has been asked by the city government of Berlin to join a team of seven experts who are expected to develop some ideas. On february 10th, Reusswig, a sociologist, will participate in the first public discussion with architects and activists. "Big Cities are amongst the most important origins of global warming", Reusswig says. "So they offer the chance to actually do something against climate change."
Building Exhibition 2020: PIK councils Berlin city government

Internationall Building Exhibitions, the german short version of this is IBA, offer paradigms of forward-looking architecture and urban planning. "That's exactly what climate policy needs today", Reusswig says. "Big cities worldwide need to move forward in a process parallel to the one of international climate summits." This concerns mitigation of climate change as well as adaption to climate change impacts. In summer 2011, the team of experts will present their recommendations to the senate of Berlin.

The Potsdam Institute considers the federal capital of Berlin to have some special responsibility. "European architects and urban planners build carbon-neutral cities of the future in China or at the Persian gulf", says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of PIK. "Berlin with its huge reserves of unused spaces - amongst them two former inner-city airports - can use the IBA 2020 to build a showcase for the climate-friendly city of the future." The PIK, he says, is happy to contribute it's competences.

 

Invitation to the IBA-Studio-event on february 10th, 2011, at 7 pm

More information concerning IBA 2020 in Berlin (german only)