Herbert Dreiseitl

Herbert Dreiseitl was born in Ulm, Germany, and founded the firm Atelier Dreiseitl in 1980. He trained as an artist and works as a landscape architect designing water sculptures and urban space. The firm places a special importance on the management of rainwater (surface water runoff) in a sustainable manner. As much as possible of the water which falls on roofs and on the ground is collected and biologically purified by storing it in a pond with a diverse flora and flora. The structures which duct and contain the water are modeled in the studio at a 1:1 scale before being cut in stone. The technique is innovative, for a landscape design office, and profoundly creative. Dreiseitl's best-known project, but not necessarily his best project, was for Berlin�s Potsdammer Platz. It uses rainwater for flushing toilets, irrigation, floodwater protection and temperature moderation. The reed-planted embankment forms part of a biological and chemical water-purifying system.He has also worked on the Prisma in N�nberg and and on Solar City in Linz. His book, Waterscapes: Planning, Building and Designing with Water was published by Birkhauser Verlag AG in 2001 - and should be on the shelf of every landscape architect concerned with urban design projects.