Grit Buergow holds a doctorate 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 & Regenerative Design, Cradle to Cradle® Design, watershed management, and landscape and greenhouse construction and operation.
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 Housing. She initiated the project as part of her dissertation on Urban Aquaculture – Water-sensitive transformation of cityscapes via 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 . 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.
Grit Bürgow has been working in applied research and teaching at TU Berlin since 2013. Until March 2018, she coordinated the transdisciplinary initial research for ROOF WATER-FARM at TU Berlin in the Department of Urban Planning and Housing. She developed the project as part of her dissertation on Urban Aquaculture – Water-sensitive transformation of cityscapes via blue-green infrastructures in collaboration with partners from research and practice. Today, ROOF WATER FARM is located in Berlin-Kreuzberg, not far from Potsdamer Platz, and serves as a living lab for the StadtManufaktur Berlin – cooperation and real-world-lab-platform of the TU Berlin. Jointly operated, aquatectura is the owner of the RWF-greenhouse and mainly responsible for its operation and maintenance. Student-led project workshops/ design-build-studios and spin-off start-ups from the TU Berlin such as HydroTower are essential partners of the collective living lab structure. The site of the former RWF research greenhouse is now an internationally renowned educational hub, catalyst, and incubator for the circular city and sponge city in the heart of Berlin. Guided tours, workshops, experiments, up to prototype developments take place here. In 2022, Grit Bürgow moved to the Science & Society Office of the TU Berlin Executive Board. Since then, she has been working in the field of science-society transfer alongside her entrepreneurial activities.
Her current creative and research interests lie in the design, construction, and operation of mobile blue-green infrastructure. In addition to participatory development and implementation, a central focus is on exploring cooperative operator and management concepts with schools, initiatives, collectives, and even companies. Associated living lab research and transfer projects, such as Gartenleistungen or investment projects for climate adaptation, such as ClimateHOOD_CampusPARK_Charlottenburg in cooperation with StadtManufaktur Berlin, combine various horticultural and ecological components with rainwater harvesting and building-related water recycling: e.g., hydroponics, aquaponics as lightweight farm systems that can be integrated into buildings, from vertical to floating; climate-effective urban greenery such as urban wetlands, reed beds, or mini-moors, roof and facade greening, mini-forests/tiny forests, and riparian forest ecosystems or classic city trees. Partners in this “living lab family” include the Beach61 – an outdoor sports facility with the Shower-Tower as Berlin’s first outdoor vertical farm (BeachFARM) in Gleisdreieckpark; the Max-Planck-Gymnasiumin Berlin-Mitte, the RadBahn with its Testbed Filter beneath the U1 elevated railway in Berlin-Kreuzberg, and the living lab Edible Campus in Berlin-Charlottenburg, in cooperation with the B!NErLe department – Education for Sustainable Nutrition and Food Science.
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 (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, presently in PLUS Change. Her heartfelt ambition is to connect inner and outer transformation for a regenerative development.
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…