Metropolitan Ecotone

How to design the metropolis of the future? How to face urban expansion and at the same time make sure that both, cities as well as peripheries and surrounding areas – becoming increasingly interconnected – o!er an environment worth living? In this article the authors put forward a vision for the urban fringe of Berlin as a Metropolitan Ecotone between the built-up area of the city and rural Brandenburg. As an area of experimental multifunctionality and partial self-su"ciency, the Ecotone could be the new urbanity. It could enable Berlin and Brandenburg to function as a single complex realm whose systems are continually learning from and adapting to each other.