A Place Like Us

A place for commoning

‘A place like us’ is a project about the most basic forms of commoning. Sharing common dinners together and enjoying a walk though green space. It manifests itself through a series of built and grown intervention in which the main building, stretching along a typical Berlin boulevard, represents the spine of the project.
The project site is located in the green road barrier of Lichtenberger Strasse, which places it in the center of three different Berlin quarter: Mitte, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg.

The project aims to go beyond its confines and act as a deliberate strategic approach rather than a specific design proposal. The project proposes a transformation of an infrastructural traffic area into a new typology of social infrastructure. The programme consists of the following built and grown environmental interventions:

Usually the processes of the nature are thought of as a linear development, where the plant grows, matures, grows old and dies. Nature develops in a very diverse way, influenced by many different elements. The different phases do not have a fixed order, but are mixed and lived through in random patterns. In a similar way, the building develops in a diverse way as the different layers and materials have various life cycles. The facade of reclaimed burned wooden planks will eventually be replaced with fallen trees from the sight and highlight the difference between the new and old. The building will constantly change through different seasons in relation to the surround¬ings and the nature of the park.