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Cool & Clever - Chilling cities out

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April 9, 2022

Heat waves are hitting the world’s cities harder and harder. Concrete-lined, narrow streets turn the urban jungle into a bake oven. This documentary visits those trying to cool cities down as global warming intensifies.

The filmmakers speak to visionaries who are trying to beat the heat that’s a growing threat to urbanites’ health. In downtown Düsseldorf, gardeners secured by ropes and harnesses tend the biggest green façade in Europe. Architect Christoph Ingenhoven designed the green building front as a means of cooling the concrete jungle on hot days. Now, Martin Belz and his team have been given the job of bringing the 27-meter-tall wall of plants through the heat of its first summer. "We’ve got to bring water back into the cities. It cools down the whole area,” says rainwater expert Klaus Juchheim. Letting open watercourses flow through cities provides this opportunity. Unpaved areas also allow rainwater to collect, forming puddles that lower the temperature of the surrounding air as they slowly seep away. This film shows skyscrapers in Singapore that look as if they’ve been relocated in a rainforest. At the University of Singapore, Thomas Schroepfer is investigating ways to increase quality of life, even in densely populated inner cities. It’s a challenge that’s becoming more urgent for urban dwellers as climate change accelerates.

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