As an alternative model of land use to standard development, the project speculated that sustainable urban development could instead rely financially on long-term leasehold agreements with various groups. The aim was to factor greater cultural, social and symbolic capital into the process, allowing all actors to share in the success and value creation of the collective achievement. Through a varied and adaptive approach, the study could run as a series of experiments, testing ideas that could later be accepted or rejected depending on their relative success. This allowed for a level of flexibility and fitness not afforded by the master-plan, and has since become an approach employed by raumlabor in many projects.
The most important actors were the so-called Raumpioniere (Urban Pioneers) who consisted of various cultural entrepreneurs, initiatives, individuals and associations. Their approach involved exploring and activating terrain, triggering a process of open negotiation and urbanisation. Some Raumpioniere were temporary users, whilst others became involved in the long-term development of the former airport. Actors participated by proposing uses for designated areas on the airfield in which to test their ideas and desires, thereby activating the site as a series of spatial laboratories. Proposals included a bicycle workshop, a skate park and timber workshops. The most successful project was the Allmende Kontor, an urban gardening project with over 2,000 members, which still exists today.
In a politically motivated response to the Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof, strategic organisational structures were proposed by the State of Berlin and the Senate of Urban Development, which reflected the insights gained from local activities by the Raumpioniere and which were supposed to provide support as the official master plan was implemented. In practice though, the invitation of groups like Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof and the Raumpioniere to supplement the master-plan suffered at the outset from a lack of mutual trust between administration representatives and the actors of the informal urban development. As the dialogue that was originally sought never transpired on equal footing, the recommendations of the study were only implemented half-heartedly by the Senate. As a result, raumlabor learnt that empowering people to meaningfully impact their own urban environment would necessitate seeking out pockets of space within the city that are unimportant enough in the eyes of the Senate to fly under the radar of political bureaucracy.
Eventually in 2010, the Raumpioniere were essential in realising the citizens’ initiative which proposed to retain the entire former airport grounds as public space.10 The decision was finally ratified in 2014 following a city-wide referendum. The rejection of the existing planning framework amounted to a popular vote by Berliners on development rights to the city. Tempelhofer Feld was to remain open for public use and all forms of development became prohibited.
raumlabor used this referendum as an opportunity to turn a once-temporary neighbourhood centre, the JuniPark, into a long-term project for the purpose of implementing the strategy they had developed under Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof.11 The resulting Coop Campus is an initiative of Kulturhaus Schlesische 27 and raumlabor. In cooperation with the owners of the land, Evangelischer Friedhofsverband Berlin Mitte, the project continues to develop and examine models for incremental urban transformation of a former cemetery’s terrain vague into a vibrant and diverse urban neighbourhood. The project is made up of sub-projects like Die Gärtnerei Berlin.12
A response to Germany’s burgeoning refugee situation, Die Gärtnerei examines integration, inter-cultural sharing, housing and urban production through the operation of commercial flower gardens, free language classes and neighbourhood gatherings open to new and long-term residents alike. It is a space that facilitates the integration of ever more diverse actors and stakeholder groups into the incremental enrichment of life in their new city. It descends from the initial aim of Ideenwerkstatt except that it now operates outside the cumbersome and rigid planning mandates of any government body. Projects like this at once circumvent and complement the methods of planning ordinarily employed by government bodies. They require fewer resources and thus entail less risk; more experiments and visions can be tested, thereby creating an inherently flexible planning method. By flipping the traditional value system for built form projects, in these small and experimental approaches to city making there is no really no such thing as failure, merely learning.
Spreefeld balconies.
Photograph by © Andrea Kroth
Spreefeld, Optionsraum.
Photograph by © Andrea Kroth
Berlin liebt dich13
In the past ten years, a number of initiatives and projects have been launched that consider Berlin’s shifting economic and political conditions. Some seek new forms of communal living and working as well as conceptualising alternative forms of project development. Many projects focus on new commons, areas beyond market and state in which people are directly involved in the design of their living environments.
Prinzessinnengarten is an urban community garden established in 2009 as a temporary-use initiative operated by Nomadisch Grün, a non-profit limited liability company. This area of 6,000 square metres once barren land in the middle of the city, is now used to cultivate flowers and vegetables. The plot, owned by the Berlin state government, was and continues to be at risk of privatisation. With the initial lease agreement limited to one year with the option for one-year extensions, the entire garden was conceived as a nomadic operation, exclusively using raised beds made from crates and sacks. Following public pressure via petition, the lease agreement has since been amended to increase the extension term from one to five years. But the Prinzessinnengarten is more than just a space for vegetable crops in the city; it has created a space for a wide spectrum of activities. The potential for cooperation and open workshops along with the garden café and cultural events have made the Prinzessinnengarten a vibrant meeting point. It has also become a beacon beyond its neighbourhood of what can be achieved with collective action in Berlin following its post-reunification privatisation and relative neoliberalisation.
In terms of communal housing, Germany’s healthy culture of Baugruppen (building cooperatives) have made important contributions to the development of new models for urban cohabitation globally. What began as a social model for building and living on the fringe of development tactics, is now gaining recognition in today’s neoliberal landscape as a genuine alternative to the conventional business model of building, for owners and architects alike. There are positive social outcomes for inhabitants and the surroundings whilst owner-occupiers are necessarily invested as active participants in meaningful neighbourhood development.
A successful example in Berlin is the Spreefeld project, located on the bank of the Spree river. The building and housing cooperative founded in 2009, ‘saw its purpose as the creation of housing for cross-generational, socially mixed and neighbourly forms of working and living with sustainable means and to the benefit of its members.’14 The building cooperative and three participating architecture firms sought to build a community, as a community.
Spreefeld, viewed from Spree River.
Photograph by © Andrea Kroth
Tempelhof Freiheit in use Photography by © Tempelhof Projekt GmbH, Andreas Labes