Greentech Festival 2023

When Berlin’s Tegel airport permanently stopped operating in 2020, plans were made to turn the area into something extraordinary: the Urban Tech Republic. Until that becomes reality, the airfield and the hangars are functioning as a playground, an event location and a site for festivals – like the Greentech Festival 2023. This space has bid farewell to its airport days and is looking forward to its new, more sustainable purpose. What better place is there than here for working together on solutions for tackling the climate crisis? Because, let’s be honest, the construction and real estate sectors are contributing in no small part to global warming. If we want to reduce CO₂ emissions, we must build differently. This is such a complex challenge, however, that it can only be solved by collaboration – and more than anything, it requires new ideas.

The Greentech Festival – a driving force

What are the latest green technologies and who are the innovators behind them? Every year, the Greentech Festival supplies a temporary platform for these questions to be answered. The 2023 event took place over three days with more than 190 exhibitors, over 150 speakers, and 15,000 visitors, all coming together to exchange information – in live talks full of ideas, in exhibitions and presentations. Drees & Sommer, participating for the third time, initiated the Urban Sustainability Hub on the airfield, providing a space for a dozen companies to demonstrate their future-proof solutions for sustainable cities and buildings.

Temporary and yet sustainable? It can be done!

Drees & Sommer’s sustainability strategy has also applied to their appearances at fairs and exhibitions since 2019. The special booth design first introduced at Expo Real was augmented by the Brand Experience team to form the Urban Sustainability Hub: an open-air arena fulfilling not only the functional and emotional requirements of a festival but also those of a circular economy. First and foremost, materials and resources must be used sparingly and be easy to reuse or recycle.

The clear choice for the construction and the zoning of the main structure, which integrated a stage and exhibition spaces, was standard scaffolding from Layher. The partner companies had the benefit of their own booths in which to present themselves individually, coupled with a cohesive, mutual communication concept. The greatest challenge, as with any outdoor festival, is usually posed by the weather. The heritage preservation orders covering the former airport grounds forbid any insertion of anchors into the ground, so a lot of ballast was needed to stabilise the scaffold structure and protect it from potential high winds on the airfield. Another weather-related problem of recent years was caused by the sun raising the temperature of the asphalt underfoot, but by shielding it with shade sails this time around, overheating was prevented and the marketplace character was enhanced.

An eight-metre-long community table extended through the middle of the plaza, inviting visitors to sit awhile, gather their thoughts or talk more in-depth. The table and the rest of the stand were furnished with bar-height and low stools from the Tolix range developed by Xavier Pauchard: In 1920s France during his search for weather-resistant and material-saving furniture, he developed a zinc-pressing technique and ended up creating a design icon. The stools, incidentally, were not purchased but hired, meaning that they will continue to do good service for years to come.

SuperSign unleashes superpowers

What a relief to be holding events again with no more restrictions. Spatial, tangible experiences are back on the menu. A SuperSign digital screen at the entrance made visitors aware of the Urban Sustainability Hub and sparked their enthusiasm to interact with its motto. But however great the festival atmosphere may have been, the challenge of how to tackle climate change will not go away. It will pose itself every day from a different angle. And more people are needed to confront it. ACT NOW // ACT WOW