Scientific background and CV of Prof. Dr. Manfred Koehler

The main interest of Prof. Dr. Koehler, the founder of the GREEN ROOF CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE, is to quantify effects on Urban vegetation. He began his scientific career at the Technical University of Berlin in the Institute of Ecology where he was taught by two inspirational academics, Prof. Dr. Reinhard Bornkamm and Prof. Dr. Herbert Sukopp. Prof. Dr. Reinhard Bornkamm, who published his first scientific work about green roofs in 1961, started green roof research in Berlin in the 1970’s. Prof. Dr. Herbert Sukopp, is the so-called “father of urban ecology research”. They brought together an interdisciplinary team for research in urban ecology.

The walled city of (West) Berlin was a real experiment of Eco-processes in confined urban areas. Prof. Dr. Koehler was part of a young multi-disciplinary team of scientists that was to study the “city ecosystem”. This was in combination during the 1980’s with the vision of new kind of city by influential and forward thinking architects and artists such as Friedenreich Hundertwasser.


Prof. Dr. Koehler graduated from the Technical University of Berlin in 1980 and became a scientist at the Institute of Ecology for 10 years.
His phD, finished in 1987, was focussed on the eco-functions of green facades.

In 1984 Prof. Dr. Koehler started experimental ecological research on the urban renovation project at Paul-Lincke Ufer, Berlin. (see research sites). It was the first government financed urban ecology project in Germany. The research focused on the effects of vegetation in courtyards, facades and green roofs to enhance the living conditions inside of the inner-city area.

From 1990 until 1994 Prof. Dr. Koehler was head of a working group in the city-state of Bremen, organising the environmental impact assessment for harbour and city planning.

In 1994 Prof. Dr. Koehler become a Professor for Landscape Ecology in the University of Applied Sciences Neubrandenburg (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). He continued the ongoing research projects in Berlin and to establish new projects at the University of Applied Sciences in Neubrandenburg. Prof. Dr. Koehler has now established The GREEN ROOF CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE at the university.