Space for Life, not for Cars

Climate change means more extreme weather - more rain in shorter periods and more heat for longer ones. For both the streets we currently have are not suitable. The sealed hard surfaces do not allow for infiltration of water into the ground and instead overload our sewer systems. Their dark colour and the lack of shading heat the street a lot more than necessary.
Changing our street’s tarmac to permeable surfaces, adding more green and reducing the space for cars turns them from bleak and grey corridors into green public spaces where people like to be and use them in different ways: to play, to meet, to celebrate, to hang out, to read, to contemplate or simply to be.
In Berlin’s Pankow district, we have worked the street hard to make them less hard and investigated how spaces can change to adapt to the climate change needs. The nice side effect is that this is not only good for the climate, but also for the wellbeing of all of us and other species that now can inhabit the newly won green. Win-win!