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

Raumlabor approached this project with the questions: is reinventing the history of a place a good idea, when the current accepted history isn’t helping the present situation? Is it possible by reinventing a history to create a new perspective for a site which has undergone a century of urban catastrophes?

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.

In St. Pölten, the regional capital city from Lower Austria - not far from Vienna - an expedition is being prepared. Where to? What for? What will we look for and discover? Who will take part? These are questions that raumlaborberlin will discuss with the inhabitants of the city.

The space station, as an extreme example of the utopian city and efficient habitable structures, is an integral part of the past century’s vision of the future. This future has arrived, and the dream of inhabited cities in outer space will remain unfulfilled for a long time to come.

Theater happens right now! A luminous mist of bubbles floating between the old bathhouse and the shaft tower of the former colliery Zeche Zollverein. On the one hand, it reminds of the cleaning process on the other of the transformation into a cultural location.

The chaise bordelaise is a participative, educative, social sculpture with a private use for the „INSIDERS“exhibition in Arc en Reve / CAPC, Bodeaux.
09.10.2009 - 07.02.2010

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 Hotel-Stadt directly developed into self-regulating, informal urban strategies generated through participation of and cooperation between artists and populace, outsiders and locals, top-down and bottom-up movements. Just like a high-rise favela […][“Hotel Neustadt”] was a city without a master plan, a new city within a fading context, a temporary city within permanence, a nomadic city within a settlement.” Kyong Park, from: “Moving cities, moving nations”, Hotel Neustadt p.120 et seq. Berlin 2004

For the “house of imagination” raumlabor berlin interlaces two architectural ideas of living in Torstrasse 166: A 1:1 modell of a Plattenbau flat type P2 which is living reality in Halle-Neustadt and many cities of the former GDR is built into a Gründerzeit flat. Both models date from a time of mass production of living space, the Gründerzeit as a market driven approach, the P2 flat as a government-controlled approach.

The System is a labyrinthine structure made of 223 doors from buildings that have been demolished in Halle-Neustadt. It opens up spaces to the visitors in unexpected ways, reflecting diverse aspects of our work.

“Silver Pearl Congress Centre and Spa” was a temporary hotel and festival centre for “Art goes Heiligendamm”. In appearance it alluded to the profile of the Hotel Kempinski, Heiligendamm, “The White Pearl”, where the 2007 G8 summit took place. It had a spa, a sauna, a golf course, comfortable slumber suites with a view of the sea and a security fence. There you could do what was prohibited in Heiligendamm: proclaim your opinion, demonstrate at the fence and relax.

“Duismülsen” is a newly founded imaginary linear model city along the underground line U18 from Duisburg via Mülheim to Essen. We offered residents the chance to look at their own home area from an unusual perspective by taking part in a guided tour through Duismülsen.

A portrait of the steel magnate Lakshmi N. Mittal, the new owner of the former local steelworks “Lehnin-Steelworks”, is painted onto a wall hanging from a photo found on the internet. Location: on the Aleja Solidarnosc, the main street that connects the central square to the steelworks, the socalled “Axis of Labour”.

A large prison is located in a residential area in south Munich. Societal harmony and societal sanctioning face each other as parallel worlds. White Spots intervenes in this district with thirtythree cars of the same colour which fluctuate through the streets following a secret choreography.

The “Star Grinder” is a mobile planetarium in a camper van. It visits remote places, discovering regional stories from which acoustic images are created, and which can be experienced inside the vehicle. Star constellations that are generated from the individual tales are projected onto the inside of the dome using the “Etonian Method”.

Wolfsburg in the year 2036; the Volkswagen works have moved to Romania. Large parts of the city have been abandoned. A globally operating property developer has taken over the city and has started a large-scale advertising campaign. Using so-called transformers, the city is converted into a noble suburb.

Having set up the building at the start of the exhibition, the team got to work. In five thematic groups, the members of raumlabor began to design a house from the inside out. Beginning with the furniture, they worked through a process of negotiation towards the complexity of a collectively designed house.

One of three guided walking tours that revealed the palace to be a public and political space and the mountain to be a place of selfawareness. The subjects of this eight-stop route were climbing as a verbal and intellectual process, exploring the space between constructions and identifying dimensions of depth. The tour ended at the Agora, on the balcony of thepalace with a view of Schlossplatz over grapes and a cup of tea.

Spatial design and architecture for the “Produkt und Vision” exhibition; starting with the table archetype, exhibition furnishings were created for exhibits by twenty artists and artistic groups. By changing their constructive elements—board, frame and legs—in scale and position, a spatial continuum was created, showing an excerpt from a large field of possibilities.