Sommerwerkstatt Wiesenburg

„Sommerwerkstatt Wiesenburg“ is a festival for students and residents of Wedding, a district in north-western Berlin. It took place in the summer of 2012 and was carried out in the relicts of a former homeless shelter. Due to decades of vacancy in this largely unknown area nature has taken over most of the domain. The festival aimed to draw the public’s attention towards the beauty of this place. The idea was developed by Max Dengler and Sönke Hartmann who intended to create a place where the inhabitants of this specific district could meet and exchange.

The temporary buildings for the workshops were designed and constructed by 80 first-year-architecture-students. For this matter the workshop organisers appeared as clients and, in several meetings, expressed their ideas and wishes. It was the student’s task to produce an execution, budget and time plan, to find sponsors, to research the building material and to experiment with construction methods. In the end they organized a construction site as well as a transport of building material and established the pavilions entirely on their own. The target was to introduce the students to the complexity of designing and constructing, also to give them an idea of guidelines within the planning and executing procedure. Last of course, to present the developed architectural site and to share it with the people involved.

The following designs were implemented on the festival grounds:
Werkraum (workroom) – a show and work room for 15 people used for workshops
Grüner Lernraum (green study room) – a structure that suggests classes in the open air and also offers an infrastructure for gardening and vegetable farming.
Küche (kitchen) – a fireplace with space for at least 15 people to commonly cook.
Schrein (shrine) – a place for at least six people to sit and eat
Lesekammer (reading chamber) – a place to retreat, space for maximum two people.
Lichtspiele (play of light / cinema) – a room for a visual installation about 30 people.
Rastplatz (resting place) – dwelling zone of the festival

Since the usage of uncommon building material does not allow a reference to traditional construction methods, the students were challenged to explore a creative approach on their architectural designs, hence, getting to know the meaning of building-constructional research.