© CITYFÖRSTER architecture + urbanism

Designing is based on images. Nature is an essential source. The ‘city as forest’ image has accompanied CITYFÖRSTER as a mission statement since its founding in 2005.

We understand the city as a forest: a complex (eco)system in which various spatial elements are synergistically and dynamically networked. In this sense, with every design, the challenge and the opportunity arise to contribute to the system as a whole rather than creating a solitary object.

The metaphor of the city as a forest is always an occasion for interpretation, evoking associations and including various readings of the interaction of scales, objects, functions, and programmes. The brushwood stands for open spaces for innovation; the humus is the constantly renewing network of urban spaces and userships; wastelands are underexposed places for the unpredictable; only the mixed forest creates climate resilience; material cycles keep the system alive…

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Verena Brehm is a founding partner of CITYFÖRSTER architecture + urbanism. Her field of work encompasses urban transformation processes. Verena Brehm studied architecture and urban design in Hannover, Berlin, and Copenhagen. Since 2022, she has been Professor for Urban Design at the University of Kassel.

This object is part of the TACK Exhibition “Unausgesprochenes Wissen / Unspoken Knowledge / Le (savoir) non-dit”, in the section “Horizons and References”.