Sonny Wonny Sights : A sustainable redevelopment project in Berlin-Lichtenberg : Model for beyond sustainability in urban social tenements

The housing improvement in the redevelopment area Weitlingstraße, Berlin-Lichtenberg, involves a beyond sustainability project. It offers the residents and the neighbourhood places for a variety of ecological, cultural and economic initiatives. A dream of integral small spatial urban sustainability is being realised. During construction the options and technical requirements are being created to realize this dream. The ecological-technical part shows what can be achieved without an increase in the total operating costs and without quality standard losses for social city apartment housing: a extreme reduction of the use of drinking water and sewage water can be realised (reductions of more than 80% for drinking water and 90% for sewage water) and a solar and wind-driven electricity production of nearly 100% of the electricity consumption and an extensive personal supply of ecologically grown vegetables. With these measures alone the project can be seen as an exemplary try-out of extensive urban ecological sustainability. The beyond sustainability of this model, however, lies in its social aspects: the sustained satisfaction of social needs of the inhabitants through social rents, renter integration in joint ownership, and in the running association, joint decision about the formation of the house cohabitation, a manifold and differentiated offer of private, joint and semi-public spaces with various options for creative evolvement and initiatives.