Michael Obrist
in conversation with
in conversation with
Axel Timm
ÜBE-Räume für Stadttransformation
Wohngespräche
28. Oktober 2025
Axel Timm
Michael Obrist [feld72] in conversation with Axel Timm about "ÜBE-Räume für Stadttransformation"
raumlaborberlin is a collective of nine architects that creates spaces in which people can practise allowing themselves to be affected. raumlabor has been practising to create these spaces, including their communities, for 20 years now. This has mostly taken place in neglected urban spaces in ‘non-places’ where conventional planning and architectural tools are not promising or have already failed. Through activating planning methods and temporary interventions and installations in public spaces, the scope for action in city-making is expanded and rethought in collaboration with local experts and external specialists, with architecture serving as a tool for creating a ‘city of possibilities’. Architecture becomes an experimental building laboratory for a participatory building practice in urban space that is focused on the moment. Architecture is to be understood less as an object and more as a story that becomes part of the history of the place. In my input for the Wohngespräche, I will present our work in terms of practice spaces for urban production using a few examples.
Since 1999, raumlabor (nine architects who have come together to form a collective network structure) has been working in Berlin at the interfaces between architecture, urban planning, art and intervention. In our work, we address the city and urban redevelopment as a process. We are drawn to difficult urban locations. Places that have been worn down by different systems, periods of time or planning ideologies and cannot adapt. Places that have been abandoned, that remain, but are not insignificant in terms of their relevance to the urban landscape.
raumlabor.net
Werkstatt Haus der Statistik 2018/2019 Berlin
raumlabor.net/werkstatt-haus-der-statistik
Floating University 2018/2019
raumlabor.net/floating-university
JA! tempelhof 2014 Berlin, Tempelhofer Feld
raumlabor.net/tempelhof-2014
raumlaborberlin is a collective of nine architects that creates spaces in which people can practise allowing themselves to be affected. raumlabor has been practising to create these spaces, including their communities, for 20 years now. This has mostly taken place in neglected urban spaces in ‘non-places’ where conventional planning and architectural tools are not promising or have already failed. Through activating planning methods and temporary interventions and installations in public spaces, the scope for action in city-making is expanded and rethought in collaboration with local experts and external specialists, with architecture serving as a tool for creating a ‘city of possibilities’. Architecture becomes an experimental building laboratory for a participatory building practice in urban space that is focused on the moment. Architecture is to be understood less as an object and more as a story that becomes part of the history of the place. In my input for the Wohngespräche, I will present our work in terms of practice spaces for urban production using a few examples.
Since 1999, raumlabor (nine architects who have come together to form a collective network structure) has been working in Berlin at the interfaces between architecture, urban planning, art and intervention. In our work, we address the city and urban redevelopment as a process. We are drawn to difficult urban locations. Places that have been worn down by different systems, periods of time or planning ideologies and cannot adapt. Places that have been abandoned, that remain, but are not insignificant in terms of their relevance to the urban landscape.
raumlabor.net
Werkstatt Haus der Statistik 2018/2019 Berlin
raumlabor.net/werkstatt-haus-der-statistik
Floating University 2018/2019
raumlabor.net/floating-university
JA! tempelhof 2014 Berlin, Tempelhofer Feld
raumlabor.net/tempelhof-2014
