‘Schwammtastisch’: Playfully Greening the City

Design your own sponge city at the click of a mouse. The online game ‘Schwammtastisch’ gives Berliners a lively insight into how rainwater can be temporarily stored in the city. The project was coordinated by the Berliner Regenwasseragentur.

“Turn grey into blue-green.” The online game begins with this friendly invite from an animated yellow sponge, introducing players to the topic of temporary rainwater storage in urban areas. When raindrops fall on the sponge, it becomes plump, round and happy. In hot weather, however, it dries out and suffers.

With just a few clicks, users can then navigate through Berlin’s twelve districts and try out for themselves how grey environments can be transformed, step by step, into liveable places. Using drag-and-drop, they can shift puzzle elements – such as trees, green roofs and façades, biodiverse lawns or infiltration basins – onto the grey areas. Once a location has been greened, the next district follows. At the end of each level, a quiz question is asked. Having played all (district) levels, users will have learnt a great deal about the ‘sponge city’ concept – including its various modules. The game thus clearly demonstrates how different ‘sponge city’ measures work and can interact to make Berlin more climate-resilient and liveable.

‘Schwammtastisch’ was developed as part of the Berlin model project ‘SmartWater’ by the Berlin Centre of Competence for Water (KWB) in collaboration with the Technologiestiftung Berlin (TSB), Berliner Wasserbetriebe, the Berliner Regenwasseragentur (Berlin Rainwater Agency), the Senate Department for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment, the Senate Department for Urban Development, and the district offices of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Pankow. The SmartWater pilot project is one of the key measures of the ‘Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin’ (GD:B) strategy and is funded as part of the nationwide ‘Smart Cities Model Projects’ initiative by the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Construction (BMWSB) and the Berlin Senate Chancellery.

Fancy some water games? ‘Schwammtastisch’ is available both as a browser-based version and an app. It is free to use and no prior registration is required.

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