Since its opening in 1998, the publishing house in Amsterdamer Strasse has been a landmark in the Niehl district. The prestigious front garden area in front of the 150-metre-long, concave and completely transparent noise barrier, which faces the busy street, had to be redesigned. Following preliminary design studies, the landscape architecture firm Berkey from Wermelskirchen was commissioned to develop a gently undulating landscape on a large scale, which not only emits flowering color and fragrance stimuli in its planting, but also performs numerous ecological functions.

The starting point for the planning was irreparable damage to the parterre beds facing the street front with blocks of cut boxwood: the destructive work of the boxwood borer was already well advanced there. In a preliminary design study for the two representative areas to the side of the wide square in front of the main entrance, Berkey Landscape Architects proposed three concepts for redesigning the 900 m2 green space. One design variant was implemented, which envisaged a soft hilly landscape following the dismantling of the previous structures: The 14 mounds of earth piled up in total are between 10 and 60 m² in size and vary in height between 0.50 and 1.40 meters. With their outwardly curved morphology, they respond to the curved noise barrier and interlock the building and outdoor space. At the same time, they ensure that the future planting on them has more substrate available - with better root penetration and water availability. When planting the hills, a timeless and near-natural variant with around 20 low-growing solitary trees, 6,500 small shrubs, perennials, grasses and over 26,000 flower bulbs was favored. This gives the grounds order and architectural design not only during the flowering periods, but also during the winter dormancy period. The area was planted in such a way that rhythmic repetition creates a calm overall picture appropriate to the location. The solitary leading plants are the fire maple and willow-leaved pear. They are characterized by their winter hardiness as well as their particularly intense foliage colors and unusual trunk textures. They are combined with underplanting from a sophisticated mixed perennial planting for heat-stressed locations - be it yellow or purple coneflower, candle knotweed or globe thistle. They are joined by grasses: Garden riding-grass, lamp-cleaner grass and lawn meadow-grass. The mixed planting, which can be supplied with additional water from time to time via an artificial irrigation system, not only looks good and enhances the appearance of the building and its surroundings. It also creates habitats and feeding grounds for insects, improves erosion control, surface infiltration and fine dust binding. Ultimately, it is the entire urban microclimate that is optimized in this way.

www.berkey.eu

Photos:

Sven Berkey

(Published in CUBE Cologne 03|23)