Post-wall Berlin has emerged as a major player in contemporary cultural production. As a laboratory of lifestyles and modes of production, it attracts an influential community of highly creative people from around the globe. The AA Berlin Laboratory explores the role of experimentation, harvesting this exceptional energy. This intense workshop organised by the Architectural Association School of Architecture explores tools and systems of experimentation, focusing on the idea of dwelling.

No other city has been as enthusiastic as Berlin in experimenting with modes of living. From mass housing to highly individualistic visions of living and extreme communal regimes, Berlin has long pushed the boundaries of what it means to live together. New organisational forms of dwelling, combined with alternative implementation methods, are currently challenging the roles of both architect and local authority in the process of delivering dwellings for the city.

During this intense workshop participants will work both in the laboratory/studio and the field/city, revisiting existing experiments in dwelling and the social ideals that shape them. In search of new logics of living, students will use emerging computational and rule-based design systems to develop prototypical forms of dwelling relevant to the city of Berlin. The workshop will be led by AA and Berlin-based tutors and hosted by Aedes Network Campus Berlin (ANCB). In addition, a public programme of visits, lectures and seminars with speakers from different disciplines will provide a stage for debate.

The workshop will take place between September 3-12. For more information, click here.

Photo by Kaja Wie Van Der Pas

An installation designed by Raurouw (Arnd-Benedikt Willert-Klasing, Filippo Lodi, Jörg Petri, and Kyriakos Chatziparaskevas), a group of young architects experimenting with ideas of a continuously changing atmosphere, has just opened at the Program Gallery in Berlin. Entitled ‘Shock Control Regression Adaptation’, the laser-installation developed by Raurouw transforms the exhibition space into a place of continuously changing atmospheric conditions.

More about the installation, including more images after the break. read more »

Hans and Wassili Luckhardt's Concert Hall 1948 © The Unbuilt Berlin

An exhibit on display at Café Moskau in Berlin, a historic building from the early 1960s, is currently showing hundreds of unbuilt past visions for the city.  Collected by architect Carsten Krohn, the unbuilt Berlin projects showcase architects’ relentless fascination with the city that has such a rich history.  The projects, which were designed between 1907 and 1997, exemplify different theories and design approaches of the era.  The proposals, although all different, share the common desire to re-conceptualize and challenge the accepted architectural ways of the time.  The projects were a way for the architects to create a new identity for the city with dramatically cutting edge ideas – such as Mies van der Rohe’s plans for a skyscraper on Friedrich Strasse in 1921.

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Photo by Benjamin Pritzkuleit © Carsten Nicolai, Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin

In the center of Berlin, an amazing institution known as the Temporäre Kunsthalle is a great venue for contemporary art as exhibits are housed not only within Adolf  Krischanitz’s free plan interior, but also on the exterior.   As each new artist brings his own personality to the building’s exterior, the 11 meter high building, which covers a ground surface of 20 by 56.25 meters, becomes the artist’s blank canvas, patiently waiting for its new treatment.  The most recent exterior exhibition, autoR by Carsten Nicolai, is the third project to be realized on the façade.

More images and more about the exhibit after the break. read more »

© Reiner Hausleitner

Each year UdK Berlin organizes a small competition among the students for the concept of a Bookshop inside the School. This year’s winning proposal for the shop was designed by Dalia Butvidaite, Leonard Steidle, Johannes Drechsler and the all participating students then helped manufacturing the structure.

Cardboard as the main material was chosen because of its flexibility in shape, stability, cheapness, temporary feeling, lightness, mobility and last but not least its recyclability.

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The RE.FLECKS exhibition presents panels J. MAYER H. has derived from data-protection patterns. Developed by chance in print shops around 1900, the patterns were used as an envelope lining to protect the confidential content inside.

One of these many patterns was selected and interpreted spatially in the form of various art objects. Like the inkblot pictures by Rorschach, an early 20th century psychoanalyst, the RE.FLECKS panels support the viewer’s own interpretation and reading.

Exhibition will open June 11 at 6pm at Magnusmuller, Weydingerstrasse 10/12, 10178 Berlin.

Competition Site

The Schindler Award has the goal of improving access and overall mobility for all city dwellers, irrespective of their age, status or physical capabilities. To that end, it challenges young architects to think beyond form, light and materials and to focus on the needs of the people who will eventually inhabit the structures and spaces that they design.

The task this year is aimed at transforming a somewhat neglected area of the 1936 Olympic grounds into a pleasing, functional and fully accessible sport and leisure compound. Projects must be submitted by July 30. For more information visit the competition’s official website. Seen at bdonline.

Schwarz

Kusus + Kusus architekten’s BBI-Info Tower at the Capital Airport in Berlin is designed to be a recognizable element for the airport that will “serve the whole region and far beyond the boundaries of the construction site beyond.”   Rising 31 meters, the tower is a welcoming sight for visitors approaching by land or passengers on plane.  Programmatically, the building is a observation tower that provides views of the “growing” new airport complex which is currently being developed.  By ascending to the top, the visitor is then roughly at the level of the surrounding construction cranes and gains new insight into the construction activities.

More images and more about the tower after the break. read more »

© Courtesy of Daniel Libeskind - Rendering by bromsky

The Jewish Museum Berlin held a press conference yesterday to reveal the design by Daniel Libeskind for the Jewish Museum Berlin Academy. Mr. Libeskind designed both the Jewish Museum Berlin (completed 2001) and the Glass Courtyard (completed 2007) which is an extension to the original building.

More images and complete press release after the break. read more »

Property development group Euroboden is building a unique apartment house at Johannisstraße in Mitte, Berlin’s downtown district. J. MAYER H. Architects’ design for the building, which will soon neighbor both Museum Island and Friedrichstrasse, reinterprets the classic Berliner Wohnhaus with its multi-unit structure and green interior courtyard.

More images and description after the break. read more »

© The Berg

German architect Jakob Tigges has projected a new and visionary landmark in Berlin. He plans to build a mountain of 1,000 meters high called “The Berg”, which would become a never-before-seen tourist destination in the German capital city. Seen at Plataforma Arquitectura. More images and description after the break. read more »

Our friends from Fantastic Norway shared with us their project, “Walking Berlin”, an event created as part of their exhibition at the DMY International Design Festival 09 in Germany.

The walking houses are man-sized models of their latest architectural project: a tourist destination located on the northern west coast of Norway. As the project depends on the idea of travelling, they decided it was only fair that the houses got to do some travelling too!

The project consists of a group of narrow high-rise modules welcoming the guests of the Norwegian west coast. The systematic and flexible module-system allows the outdoor spaces, the miniature high-rise modules and the interiors to be designed in collaboration with the future inhabitants and selected artists.

More images after the break. read more »

The Royal Palace at Scholssplatz, located in the german city of Berlin,  was destroyed by the German Democratic Republic in 1962 and in its place, they built the Palace of the Republic which was also demolished in 2005.

Since then many proposals have come, till in 2007, the Bundestag (German Parliament), decided on a reconstruction plan. Three façades of the palace will be rebuilt, and the interior will be renewed. One of the proposals came from Graft Architects who designed an art heaven in the form of a kunsthall for the young and vital international art scene in Berlin. The design is envisioned as an art cloud a temporary light structure of exhibition space, seemingly floating and resting for a moment above the topography of soft mounds.

Seen at designboom. More images after the break. read more »

Architects: Die Baupiloten
Location: Berlin, Germany
Client: TU Berlin
Project Team: Susanne Hofmann with Marlen Weiser, Monica Wurfbaum, Martin Janekovic and the Baupiloten Christian Baalß, Tobias Bernecker, Anne Doose, Julian Fissler, Patrick Hoffmann, Denitsa Ilieva, Christoph Jantos, Elena Pavlidou-Reisig, Simone Sexauer, Benedikt Tulinius, Katya Vangelova, Ines Wegner und Mario Bär, Jens Kärcher, Eva Kanagasabai, Martin Mohelnicky, Mari Pape, Helen Ströh, Ivonne Weichold
TU Berlin Collaborators: Dipl.-Ing. Roland Lippke, FG Prof. Dr. Rückert, structural design / Reimund Ross, fire protections requirements / Dr. Ing. Paul W. Schmits, FG Prof. Kase, light engineering / Dr. Ing. Joachim Feldmann, TU Berlin, acousics / FG Prof. Mertes, quantity surveying / FG Prof. Dr. Hirche, CAD / FG Prof. Dr. Schäfer, building laws / Dipl.-Ing. Astrid Zimmermann, FG Landscape and Object
Main Materials: fabric, light, terrazzo, medium density fibreboard, ethernit
Project year: 2008
Photographs: Jan Bitter

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Guillermo Hevia Garcia took this nice pictures of the Neue National Gallery in Berlin, by Mies van der Rohe. This building is from 1968, and it´s a jump from the traditional museum idea of a closed building with exhibition rooms, into an open-plan flexible space.

The building is 64.8m long, with only 2 steel columns on each side, which free the corners giving the building a lightweight look. A very “Mies” building, with a clear and radical idea put on a very minimal, yet detailed structure.

This is the first non-contemporary building we have published so far on ArchDaily. Would you like to see more articles like this?

More pictures below.

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Another fire on a remarkable building. Today, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall by Hans Schauron caught fire. Firemen were able to control it, but its outer metal skin collapsed. Structural damage is unknown at the time, but it was seriously damaged by fire and water.

This building, finished in 1963, was an icon for the Expressionist movement, with a great acoustic work achieved trough it´s inner spaciality which conditioned its external appearance.

Pictures before and during the fire after the break.

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The Baupiloten are a group of students at the architectural faculty of the Berlin Technical University who carry out building projects under Susanne Hofmann’s guidance and supervision.

They have completed their third project. It is already the second one for the client ASB Kinder.- and Jugendhilfe GmbH, Berlin. Within the scope of the refurbishment the Baupiloten created a completely new conceived world from the temporary structure of the kindergarten as imagined by the children. The results are interactive and communicative interior spaces as well as a multifunctional façade according to Astrid Lindgren’s story. The construction costs were extremely low due to the recycling of material and the economical renewal of the damaged building substance. Concept design started in 2005 and completion was in March 2007.

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