Talking to landscape architect, urban planner and architect Professor Andreas Kipar, founder and CEO of LAND Germany GmbH, about his global projects is incredibly reassuring. He is certain that thriving landscapes in climate-adapted cities are not so difficult to achieve.

Mr Kipar, you are a landscape architect, professor at the Politecnico di Milano and managing partner of the international landscape architecture and consultancy firm LAND. Your stated aim is to reconnect people with nature. What has led you to pursue this goal?

I come from the Ruhr area, trained as a gardener in Gelsenkirchen many years ago and then studied landscape architecture in Essen. After graduating, I went to Milan, an industrial city in the 1980s. A few years later, the green transformation began. At the time, this rather grey city had a lot in common with the German Ruhr area. Now North Rhine-Westphalia has set itself the goal of becoming the greenest industrial region in the world.

LAND is currently working on the “New Administration Building for the NRW State Government at Haroldstraße 5”, which is to be installed as a link between the Kö, water and green spaces.

What a good idea! Never before has it been so important to create green cities, not least in order to adapt to climate change. You have set yourself this task worldwide. Can you tell us about some of your projects?

The 'Raggi Verdi' (green rays) in Milan, and we are still very much involved in the redevelopment of the city, for example the transformation of large industrial wastelands. The parks have become urban, biodiverse landscapes that work very well and are accessible to everyone. Similar projects helped Essen become the European Green Capital 2017.

Which green urban development projects in Düsseldorf can you highlight?

The “Kö-Bogen” is undoubtedly an urban development achievement, but I would particularly like to highlight the “Blue-Green Ring”, which puts the Rhine and the Old Town at the centre of urban planning. Another major project we are working on is “H5 - Haroldstraße 5”: The former police headquarters will be demolished to make way for a new ministry building linking the Kö, the waterfront and green spaces. From our office in Flingern we are working on various urban development projects, including schools and housing. Together with the Rheinische Post, we have also been involved in the forum “Zeitenwende für die Innenstadt” (“Turning Point for the City Centre”) to develop solutions for a people- and climate-friendly district in Düsseldorf.

Professor Andreas Kipar, CEO, landscape architect, urban planner and architect, is the founder and CEO of LAND Germany GmbH. His aim is to reconnect people with nature.

In all your projects, you want to reconnect people with nature. How do you do this?

By making a city with gardens and parks climate-friendly, by positioning the issue through an ethical imperative, and by finding new aesthetic models in society. If we want to move from an imbalance to a new equilibrium, we need to bring back what has been neglected - nature.

How do you install more nature in city centres?

We need to have the courage to unseal so that the soil can absorb water, cool and grow again. We need examples like those in Paris, but also in Milan, where they are taking every opportunity to implant nature. Such concepts are also important for the economic ranking of a metropolis. We can only find workers in a city with a high quality of life. The business community knows this, and now politicians must also give more attention to this issue.

What other role can nature play in the economy?

As part of the World Economic Forum, I am working on Nature Positive Cities: how much natural capital in terms of CO2 sequestration, biodiversity creation or soil fertility does nature produce in our cities? This is where we move from passive thinking to an active balance sheet. Going green not only costs money, it also produces natural capital. By investing in nature now, we can also minimise the costs of future natural disasters. To increase ecosystem services, sustainability must be made visible and measurable, and new technologies are of great value here. Our research lab in Düsseldorf is working on exactly these issues and is part of the KI.NRW network, the competence platform for artificial intelligence in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Professor Kipar and his team are trying to incorporate as much biodiversity as possible in the project "New construction of an administrative building for the state government of NRW at Haroldstraße 5".

You talk a lot about biodiversity: what exactly does it mean - and how can it be implemented in cities?

We can learn a lot from cities like Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna, Amsterdam, Oslo and Zurich - they all have measures in place to embed biodiversity. At the moment, many cities are still lacking in species because of monotonous planting - hundreds of identical trees in a row - which is the opposite of enriching biodiversity. We need to go wild; it is also an aesthetic new beginning.

That would be a really nice concluding remark, but I would like to ask one last question. You've already mentioned many cities that are doing very well in going green. What ideas do you have for Düsseldorf to speed up the process of becoming climate neutral and even greener?

Every piece of architecture in the city centre today can play a proactive role in this issue. This has to do above all with the varied greening of facades, roofs and ground floors. I see this as a call to take a much more proactive and radical approach to the issue of nature in the construction of roads, schools, housing and administrative buildings. Every square should have a climate forest. Let's take a look at Paris, where people sit in gardens on the streets. And what Paris can do, Düsseldorf can do too!

Think big?

Think big! If NRW wants to become the largest green industrial region in the world, and it should do so quickly, then the state capital should also become the most nature-positive city in the greenest industrial region! •

Words: KATJA VADERS
Pictures: PR, Nicola Collela, Gina Barcelona Architects, Ralph Richter, LAND Germany GmbH, Johannes Kassenberg, Rupert Oberhaeuser

Think Big!