A complex challenge needs a complex strategy composed of 5 interweaved layers of discussion with the existing urban and social landscape: exploration, using, building, planning and space-making

An ideas workshop is working out a concept for an integrated urban development of Tempelhof considering the special situation in Berlin, recognizing urban pioneers as catalysts and initiators of urban activity and applying them as tools of site development. Site activation by urban pioneers and culural initiatives is linked with long-term urban development concepts from the start and is taken to mean an integrative component of the entire development process.

Subway-station Eichbaum between Essen and Mülheim/Ruhr is an urban spot of spatial deficiency, that has to be converted in near future. The project “Eichbaum Countdown” adresses to young people of the neighborhood, who are connected to the Eichbaum-station.

An urban strategy for the transormation of a central area of the city of munich. Proposing to work with a flexible framework of tools and rules, the strategy is aiming to design a development path, which allows to keep and improve local initiatives and qualities and is sensitive to the threat of gentrification for the diversity of central urban areas.

Eichbaumoper characterises the temporary transformation of the metro station Eichbaum into an opera house. ‚Eichbaum’ is a crosspoint and station located between the cities of Essen and Mülheim. Once considered as a place of aspiration and hope, the ‚Eichbaum’ is now shaped by vandalism, fear and foreboding. Premiere: 24th of June, 2009

The idea behind the Houses of Literature for Children is to create places, with the only purpose to generate a contact between children and the written culture. This contact is meant to create a permanent link to literature and reading aswell as learning through reading, recognising and understanding.

Invited by Storefront for Art and Architecture the Spacebuster was developed and designed to explore the qualities and possibilities of public space in New York City. Spacebuster interacts with the architectural and the social space and its conditions. It opens urban space for temporary collective uses.

The balcony of Salzburger Landestheater becomes an enlargement of the “smoker’s foyer”. Readings, cinema, concerts, dancing or casino can take place in this additional room. The bubble is translucent and very well adapted for projections from inside or outside. The result is a completely new view at night. Local and friendly artists are resposible for performances on the balcony.

To inform the public about Periferic 8 a temporary architectural structure - the Info Point - was built in front of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University. The architectural structure functions as a meeting and info-point of Periferic 8 and as a public space for discussions and screenings. It is not only a functional structure but also a specific object that serves as a metaphor for a Utopian place highlighting the necessity of public spaces for the community and acting as a catalyst for social awareness.

Construction of a catalytic structure intended to reveal new appropriation and functional potentials within public space; tested and debated with residents and users. We appropriated a fenced-in empty lot in the Lavapies district of Madrid and transformed it into a public Japanese garden with stage and teahouse.

If things continue as they are on earth we’ll soon all have to move to the new planet which has been discovered south of the Orion Nebula. How should we live there? What will we need? What language will we speak? What songs will we sing? Over a twoday period, a model of the new planet will be built on the stage of the Kammerspiele including hymns, pamphlets and poetry.

This is a participative process to redefine Dessau City Park; gradual development of park with intensive integration of user interests. The design will be framed by a sculptural fringe. Flexible-use islands have been positioned at the green core of the park according to the wishes of the residents.

One-day activities in public space. The following questions were examined: can wasteland be produced? And what would Vienna’s citizens do with it? The quality inherent in wasteland is that it is open to appropriation, to new interpretation and varieties of city and interaction; it provides room for alternative social developments.

Urban allure or simply madness? The film “U(topie) 18” throws new light onto a thirthy-year-old utopia: the underground line U18 that has connected the cities of Essen and Mülheim since 1977. This model line that runs along the central strip of the A40 has seven stations. Planners, politicians and actors are asked of their intentions in interviews. These reports confront the everyday realities and hopes of today’s residents and users.

The unimune consists of the main programs Conference Center, Museum and University accompanied by the programs of public lobbys and administration to the complex. The unimue is set in the “veterans village”, an urban agglomeration quoting the arabic city in the way it is organised and the roles of public and private spaces are negotiated.

An imaginary raumlabor world in a Plexiglas box

Barges, pontoons and a car ferry would have become a floating market square on Tegler Lake as part of Tegel district festival in Berlin. All of the citizens of Tegel were to be involved; children were going to set up a fleamarket and make rafts, business people would have chartered rowing boats and sold their products from there, rowing clubs intended to organise barrel rowing competitions, kite boating and much more…

A temporary local transport system in Kreuzberg; private cars, motorcycles, solar-powered boats and horse-drawn carriages take the citizens of Kreuzberg through their neighbourhood and to the theatre over a two-week period at 1€ per ride. The interchange stations were designed by artists and architects and the theatre was converted into a model of Kreuzberg using old furniture and waste.

A mountain formation arises out of Schlossplatz, laden with projections and desires, loaded with symbolism. In its inaccessible sheerness it withholds any kind of use. It becomes a place of myth and legend as no one can traverse it. It is an object of collective exclusion, collective attraction and collective imagination. Time brings with it new approaches to the place. Tunnels are dug as its painstaking occupation moves slowly forwards.

This was an opportunity for citizens, planners and investors in Halle-Neustadt’s third residential complex to gather and exchange information. Its objective was to collect development ideas, to discuss them and to publicise already planned projects.