German architect Jakob Tigges has unveiled a plan for a 1,000m tall faux mountain at the site of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, and his supporters are taking it rather seriously. Dubbed “The Berg,” the snow-capped colossus would be the world’s largest man-made mountain and would serve as a tourist attraction for skiers in the otherwise slope-less city. We’re all about adding green space to urban environments, but devoting an enormous amount of time, energy and resources into a gigantic landmass that isn’t even inhabitable on the inside seems like a huge mound of you-know-what, if you ask us.
Plans for The Berg seem to have spawned out of a severe case of “peakis-envy”. Says Tigges in his manifesto “While big and wealthy cities in many parts of the world challenge the limits of possibility by building gigantic hotels with fancy shapes, erecting sky-high office towers or constructing hovering philharmonic temples, Berlin sets up a decent mountain… Hamburg, as stiff as flat, turns green with envy, rich and once proud Munich starts to feel ashamed of its distant Alp-panorama and planners of the Middle-East, experienced in taking the spell off any kind of architectural utopia immediately design authentic copies of the iconic Berlin-Mountain.”While it may seem counterintuitive to think that building a massive office building or condominium is more environmentally friendly than a mountain, it’s important to point out that inhabitable buildings cram tons of useful space onto relatively small footprints while a mountain (which from the renderings appears to be filled-in with no livable space inside) occupies a huge footprint while providing almost no other use than a place to enjoy outdoor sports.
While it remains unclear whether or not The Berg is an actual project with plans of being built or simply one man’s pie-in-the-sky dream, the concept has already become a hit on Facebook with almost 3,500 fans and has been published by multiple outlets in the German press. What do YOU think? Is The Berg worth building or just a mountain of unsustainable rubbish? Sound off by commenting below.
Source: Inhabitat
"The Berg" Official Website: http://www.mila-berlin.com/theberg/#
Comment: The building of this huge man-made mountain throws what we usually thought as "green design" into question. When talking about a mountain, one would usually associate it with green, good for nature. However, can an artificial mountain bring exactly the same green effect as a natural mountain does? When taking all the money and labor cost into consideration, building an artificial mountain may not be cheaper than building an office building or a commercial building. Furthermore, if we take the output of the investment into consideration, building an artificial may even be a worse plan: the mountain can do nothing but create a outdoor activity space, while building an office building may generate more social and economical effect. Furthermore, if we want green space, we can also achieve this by buiding a green roof on top of the office buildings.
Building this massive berg in the center of this city of Berlin may be a good experiment in artificial biosphere, but its economic cost should still be put into doubt. This reminds us to relook at sustainable design--something that looks green may not necessarily be sustainable. We should comprehensively review all aspect of the design process before making the conclusion of if a project can be considered "sustainable".
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