City Tree

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A CityTree is a new type of street furniture for streets and squares in cities that works as a filter for dust and abrasion more effectively than a natural tree . The developers, a start-up company from Dresden with current headquarters in Berlin , have already successfully deployed their “city trees” in several German cities and abroad.

City Tree (left in the picture) at the Dresden University of Applied Sciences (HTW)

history

The four studied specialists Peter Sänger, Dénes Honus, Zhengliang Wu and Victor Splittgerber, each from a different field ( horticulture / biology , architecture , IT and mechanical engineering ) founded the company Green City Solutions (GCS) in March 2014 with the aim of dealing with pollutants To find and market affordable and very effective solutions for cities or areas.

They designed a completely new type of angular urban structure with mosses and cover plants growing on its vertical surface . The moss cultures filter the ambient air and can thus reduce various pollutants.

Locations and awards

The new development quickly found worldwide interest, so that u. a. CityTrees have already been set up in Oslo , Klingenthal , Dresden , Jena (at Ernst-Abbe-Platz), Berlin (where the company is headquartered on the EUREF Campus in Berlin-Schöneberg ), Glasgow , Paris , Amsterdam , Bern , Hamburg and Hong Kong have been or are currently installed.

The company won the following awards with its plant filters by the end of 2017 (selection):

  • 2015, May: one of the "100 Awarded Locations" in the competition Germany - Land of Ideas ,
  • 2015: European Youth Award in the "Go Green" category,
  • 2015, November: National winner in the field of environment in the competition Germany - Land of Ideas ,
  • 2015, November: 1st place at the Fraunhofer Urban Futures Conference Call For Ideas of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft ,
  • 2015, November: " Culture and Creative Pilots Germany",
  • 2016, January: Inclusion of CEO Dénes Honus in the " 30 Under 30 Europe" list of Forbes magazine , category "Social Entrepreneurs",
  • 2016, June: HHL's Best Bio-Based Business Concept Award ,
  • 2016, September: 2nd place in the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge,
  • 2016: seif Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, winner of the "seif Award for Future Trends",
  • 2016: Green Alley Award,
  • 2016, November: Green Buddy Award in the “Smart City Solutions” category, awarded by the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district office in cooperation with the Berlin Partner funding agency ,
  • 2016: Creative Business Cup “The world's best creative startup”,
  • 2016, November: "best start-up company" in the European competition EIT Digital Challenge, Digital Cities section,
  • 2017, January: National Winner of Chivas The Venture,
  • 2017: Global Urban Innovator 2017 of the NewCities Foundation,
  • 2017: Winner of the PropTech Innovation Award.

In the Ruhr area, the municipal administrations dealt with the question of setting up city trees. But after a test it was rejected.

description

A CityTree is a new type of construction with a base area of ​​two by three meters and a protruding four-meter high section with side ventilation slots. On this vertical, almost square, area specially selected mosses and low perennials were established, which form a total of twelve square meters of green space. The roughly one meter thick curved and hollowed shape contains a water tank with a circulation pump and supply lines to the roots for watering the moss, and solar cells can also supply the system with energy. According to the manufacturer, the maintenance effort of a CityTree is very low; It includes checking and, if necessary, replanting the moss area and refilling the tank, which evaporates 10,000 liters of water per year  . According to the 2017 tariffs (€ 1.67 / m³ water and € 1.56 / m³ wastewater), this water consumption in Munich would result in water costs of around € 32 per system per year. Measurements showed that 15 percent of nitrogen oxide and 43 percent of particles with a diameter of up to ten micrometers ( PM 10 ) are bound. Each year a system binds up to 150 kg of carbon dioxide . In addition to the function of air filtering, this installation also cools the ambient air, which is a pleasant side effect on hot and dry summer days. Effort, space requirements and energy consumption should make up less than ten percent of the planting and maintenance of natural trees.

In addition, electronics are installed in the plant container, known as the " Internet of Things ", which can be used for information and / or marketing purposes. The base of the system is designed as a bench on both sides, but there is also a narrower version without benches.

criticism

In Amsterdam, after a one-year trial period, the option to buy was not exercised because a quarter of the plants had not survived and model calculations by TNO showed that the reduction in fine dust in the air was only around 1% instead of the expected 10% to 20% and there is no positive effect with nitrogen.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Berliner Zeitung , December 22, 2016, p. 17: Sustainable .
  2. ↑ Thuringia's only City Tree is in Jena , Thüringische Landeszeitung , August 6, 2015, accessed on December 26, 2016.
  3. ↑ 20 Trongate Glasgow Young Scot: CityTree. August 4, 2017, accessed March 14, 2018 .
  4. ^ Transition écologique: un partenariat avec Airparif pour Icade . In: Groupe Caisse des Dépôts . July 3, 2017 ( caissedesdepots.fr [accessed March 14, 2018]).
  5. ↑ Amsterdam: Amsterdam 'plans' CityTrees . In: Amsterdam.nl . ( amsterdam.nl [accessed March 14, 2018]).
  6. ↑ A CityTree for the station Altstetten Zurich - SBB media . In: SBB Media . November 22, 2017 ( sbb-medien.ch [accessed March 14, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Jens Meyer-Wellmann: Can a moss wall make Hamburg's air better? ( Abendblatt.de [accessed on March 14, 2018]).
  8. ↑ Green City Solutions makes clean air profitable , at www.cebit.de; Retrieved December 26, 2016.
  9. ↑ CityTree - multifunctional green space for the intelligent city. Retrieved March 14, 2018 .
  10. ↑ EYA - Winning Projects 2015 , accessed on December 26, 2016.
  11. ↑ Honoring the national winners in the competition "Excellent locations in the land of ideas" - Newsroom. Retrieved March 14, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Top innovative ideas for the city of tomorrow - Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO. Accessed March 14, 2018 (English).
  13. ↑ GREEN CITY SOLUTIONS GMBH & CO. KG / CITYTREE . ( Kultur-kreativpiloten.de [accessed on March 14, 2018]).
  14. ↑ Michela Tindera: Denes Honus, 29 - pg. 8. Retrieved March 14, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Bioeconomy as a founding driver: Best Bio-Based Business Award presented - BioEconomy . In: BioEconomy . June 24, 2016 ( bioeconomy.de [accessed March 14, 2018]).
  16. ↑ German start-up Green City Solutions wins 200,000 euros in the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge . In: Windkraft-Journal . October 15, 2016 ( windkraft-journal.de [accessed on March 14, 2018]).
  17. ^ Seif Awards for Social Entrepreneurship 2016 - Winners and Pictures . In: seif . ( seif.org [accessed March 14, 2018]).
  18. ↑ Green City Solutions wins international Green Alley Award: ODINE. Retrieved March 14, 2018 (American English).
  19. ↑ Angelika Schöttler: And the Green Buddy Award goes to ?? -GREEN BUDDY AWARD 2016 - Angelika Schöttler. Retrieved March 14, 2018 .
  20. ↑ Meet the winners of Creative Business Cup 2016 . In: Creative Business Cup . November 22, 2016 ( creativebusinesscup.com [accessed March 14, 2018]).
  21. ^ EIT Digital Challenge Winners , accessed December 26, 2016.
  22. ↑ Chivas The Venture: Green City Solutions wins the final - deutsche-startups.de . In: deutsche-startups.de . January 30, 2017 ( deutsche-startups.de [accessed March 14, 2018]).
  23. ↑ Global Urban Innovators - New Cities Summit 2017 . In: New Cities Summit 2017 . ( newcitiessummit2017.org [accessed March 14, 2018]).
  24. ↑ Immobilien Manager Verlag IMV GmbH & Co. KG, Rudolf Müller Mediengruppe, Cologne: Premiere of the Proptech Innovation Award. Retrieved March 14, 2018 .
  25. ↑ First of all, no moss stele for the Münsterstrasse district , on www.ruhrnachrichten.de; accessed on October 23, 2018.
  26. ↑ Solutions - Green City Solutions . In: Green City Solutions . ( greencitysolutions.de [accessed on March 14, 2018]).
  27. ↑ Information about the manufacturer in "Green City Solutions_ CityTree_ Praesentation_ Project book.pdf" viewed May 25, 2017.
  28. ↑ Homepage of GCT describing the City Tree
  29. ↑ Solutions - Green City Solutions . In: Green City Solutions . ( greencitysolutions.de [accessed on March 14, 2018]).
  30. ↑ Proef met CityTrees loopt uit op mislukking , on www.parool.nl; accessed on January 12, 2020.
  31. ↑ TNO 2019 R10497 The impact of City Trees on air quality in the Valkenburgerstraat (Amsterdam) , accessed on January 12, 2020.