The Oekowerk green roof in the Grunwald, Berlin  is an example of a green roof that started the modern green roof movement. The Ecological Centre was originally a water treatment centre built in around 1870. At that time it was common practice to waterproof buildings with a wet bitumen was highly inflammable. This was used on tenement blocks sitting side by side in the centre of the city and posed a huge fire risk. Therefore the wet bitumen was capped with a layer of sand about 6cm in depth. Over time the sand was colonised by vegetation.

After the Second World War such vegetated roofs were studied by ecologist and urban nature conservationists in what was then West Berlin and the modern green roof movement was born.

In the centre of Berlin the air quality in the late nineteenth Century and for much of the C20th was very poor and the plant communities that survived were very tolerant. In the main they were sedum species. However the roof at Oekowerk has a different type of vegetation. Although sedums are present the roof is dominate by lichens and moss, some of which are relatively rare and couldn't survive in areas of poor air quality.


The roof was  refurbished in the early 2000s, meaning that the life of the waterproofing was at least 130 years!!!! The original growing medium was retained and replaced on the roof was the refurbishment was complete. The seed bank with the substrate has reestablished the original vegetation. The roof has also been surveyed for invertebrates and results show that a n
umber of rare invertebrates are living on the roof.

Oekowerk is now an ecological centre and is well worth a visit if one is ever in Berlin.