CityLAB Summer School 2025: City.Forest.Lab.
Wenn Stadt, Wald und Wissenschaft zusammenkommen – eine Kooperation von Reallabor Wald, der HTW und CityLAB Berlin für neue Wege des urbanen Zusammenlebens.
Collaborators
- project co-lead | research associate
Graduated from the Technical University of Berlin and University of Artis in Design & Computation, a transdisciplinary study program. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication from the Berlin University of the Arts and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Her interests include feminist perspectives on digitalisation, queering technology and human-machine interaction and relationships. Her practical work moves between media such as installation, print, video, wearables, illustration and prototyping.
- student assistant
From a small town in Mecklenburg (Northern Germany), surrounded by mostly forests and lakes, with my head always in the clouds and interested in every book I could get my little hands on. I’ve gone from studying mechanical engineering, history, classical archaeology, to now finally trying to finish my degree in informatics.
While working IT at Radbahn Berlin to finance my studies, I met Sara and later joined her project. Now I’m teaching myself electrical engineering, endlessly tinkering with things, and trying to be useful while learning along the way.
I also help seniors at a local library and am part of a nonprofit trying to improve Berlin.
- communications manager
Communications Manager with a focus on Strategy and Quality Management at CityLAB Berlin.
- Strategic Partnership
In charge of strategic partnerships at CityLAB Berlin.
by Jenny Huang und Yannick Müller
Digital Perspectives on Ecological Spaces
For the seventh time, we at CityLAB opened our doors to collaborate with tinkerers, students, and experts in the framework of the CityLAB Summer School to develop solutions for current challenges. In light of increasingly frequent droughts and forest fires, this year we asked ourselves: What if the forest could speak to us — through sensors, data streams, and sounds? And how can digital technologies help interweave city and nature more closely?
From Idea to Implementation
The CityLAB Summer School 2025 sought answers to exactly these questions. For two weeks, CityLAB, in cooperation with HTW Berlin, the Real-Lab Forest of TU Berlin, the Technologiestiftung Berlin and ZK/U Berlin – Center for Art and Urbanistics, transformed into a workshop for both digital and analog rustling of leaves. Flying sensors, interactive augmented-reality applications for urban spaces, and machine-learning approaches for environmental crisis scenarios were at the core. With creative uses of technology and new ecological perspectives, the relationship between humans, machines, and trees was further developed — always with the goal of connecting digital innovation and sustainability.
The Forest as a Real-Lab
Building on this year’s Summer School theme “City.Forest.Lab – Digital Perspectives on Ecological Spaces”, around 15 participants explored how technology, art, and science can merge to create new forms of access to nature. Using helium balloons and a few lines of code, they created DIY drones for tree-species recognition or visualisations showing the amount of CO₂ stored by individual trees.
“Not a Drone” – A Fire-Detection Prototype
The project “Not a Drone” addresses a topic that is becoming increasingly urgent in Europe due to heatwaves and droughts: the early detection of forest fires. The student team developed a low-cost and flexible prototype in which a camera unit is attached to a helium balloon. It periodically takes pictures of its surroundings and analyses them with an ESP32-S3 microcontroller for fire-like colours.
If the system detects signs of fire, it automatically sends a warning message with location data to the fire department. The approach shows clearly that early-warning systems can be realised even with simple means: the system can run on solar power for weeks, covers a radius of up to two kilometres, and can be reused after the danger season. “Not a Drone” thus connects technical creativity with practical environmental protection — a strong example of how innovative ideas from the Summer School can lead to real solutions for current challenges.
Click here for the project documentation.
“Baumfakt AR App” – Making the Contribution of Trees Visible
The “Baumfakt AR App” arose from the idea of making the influence of trees on the urban microclimate visible. Instead of abstract maps, the team developed an augmented-reality application that shows users on-site how a tree contributes to CO₂ absorption and O₂ production. Using data from Berlin’s tree register, the app visualises photosynthesis with floating molecules and adds expressive comparisons — for example, in breaths or everyday objects — to make the ecological value of trees tangible.
For the technical implementation, the students used JavaScript, HTML, and AR.js. The main challenge was to connect AR elements and text information in a stable and interactive way without the visualisations overlapping. The result is a functional minimum viable product (MVP) that shows how data visualisation and environmental awareness can be combined creatively — an impressive example of digital sustainability education in the city.
Click here for the project documentation.
Between Expertise and Experiment – Voices from Our Practice Partners
Beyond the projects themselves, something deeper emerged: learning by doing, listening instead of measuring, a redefined relationship between city, technology, and nature. The Summer School became a space where ecological sensitivity met digital curiosity — and where small visions of the future grew out of experiments.
Athena Grandis from the Real-Lab Forest at TU Berlin emphasised how important it is to provide students with a holistic understanding of ecology in technology development and to explore the complex interactions between different actors and levels in a hands-on way:
“I found it particularly impressive how the students tackled the different problems that arose during the creative process and found solutions. In doing so, they brought together software, hardware, ecological thinking, and social benefit.”
In addition to an excursion to ZK/U, the Summer School was accompanied by a variety of workshops and keynote lectures by experts — among them Anna Meide from the Open Data Information Office Berlin (ODIS), who gave insights into the world of data visualisation:
“At this year’s CityLAB Summer School 2025, I had the great honour and pleasure to switch sides. As a student, I first came to CityLAB through the Summer School in 2018, and now I’m glad to pass on the knowledge I’ve gained in practice over the past years to the next generation of students. When, during the final presentation, the cluster of glittering blue helium balloons rose and carried the sensor over the paper forest, I knew — truly great projects! Even in the utopian world of Star Trek, it couldn’t have sparkled more beautifully.”
Prof. Dr. Olga Willner from HTW Berlin also looked back enthusiastically on the two-week Summer School and highlighted the interdisciplinary collaboration:
“Our seventh joint Summer School was an absolute highlight with fantastic projects from the ‘Real-Lab Forest’ of TU Berlin! Drones, Edge AI, Augmented Reality — everything you could wish for. The week was crowned by the final presentations set against the unique backdrop of ZK/U. A great collaboration with CityLAB and TU Berlin — this is how working interdisciplinarily on the future of our city is truly fun.”
The voices of our practice partners illustrate what makes the Summer School so special: a vibrant collaboration of research, design, and engagement — driven by people who don’t see city and nature as opposites, but as a shared task.
Conclusion and Outlook
The strong interest and numerous questions during the public final presentation showed that the topics of the Summer School resonated far beyond the group of participants. In retrospect, what remains is the feeling of a week that changed how we think about cities: less as infrastructure, more as ecosystem; less as plan, more as process. Perhaps sustainable urban development begins exactly here — in the shared wonder at the invisible connections between sensors, roots, and ideas.