Swampscapes 2024
Have you ever been at Floating after a heavy rainfall? Did you ever notice the amounts of water rushing in through the tunnel, effervescent, roaring, blustering? Collected through the gutters and manholes into the vast network of tunnels, straight into the basin. So much power.
The water comes in, and the infrastructure, made to retain it until the canalisation is ready for it, takes it in, and swallows it slowly. What is left, once the water leaves again? The barren subsurface of the basin. Grey Asphalt, like a parking lot. But here and there, each time the rain comes, the cracks within the asphalt grow wider and wider, break open the surface, and with each flush, the basin is already slowly unsealing itself.
Last year’s semester of the Learnscapes was all about unsealing. We thought about the layers of asphalt that cover the basin, we told poems about the unsealing of it, imagined what we might find underneath it, and envisioned how it would be, if the water infiltrated right there and then.
The water retention basin is to be renaturalised opening up questions about the responsibilities human actors such as members of the association, guests and visitors could potentially play in shaping and maintaining a habitat being shared with numerous other species. As humans, we already are deeply connected to the Floating and its larger ecological contexts. Humans have sealed the cities surface, poured the concrete shell and contaminate the water flushed into the basin. The transformation of the basin can´t be about if but about how humans become part in co-shaping their shared habitat.
Swamposium
17 July 2024
We warmly invite you to join the ‘SWAMPOSIUM’ this years Learnscapes Symposium. We would like to use the opportunity of coming together once again to collectively shape next year’s Learnscapes Programme at Floating and think further about a Learnscapes community of practice.
The Learnscapes Symposium: SWAMPOSIUM invites past, present and future participants of the Learnscapes Programme for a days of exchange, presentations, talks and get-togethers – an opportunity to take a deeper dive into the floating landscapes of knowledge production and practices of un-, co- and re- learning beyond academia.
This season we aim to reflect practices of un-, re- and co-learning through the notion of becoming the swamp – questioning established planning processes, breaking out of institutional borders and entrenched learning methods, developing new ways of practice-based knowledge production, envisioning alternative futures and narratives and exploring spatial transformations of the basin and beyond.
14 – 17h
presentation of student works
(with TU Berlin, University of the Arts Berlin, Berlin International University of Applied Sciences, Braunschweig School of Arts, TH Nürnberg, kunsthochschule weissensee, kontaminiert werden, and more)
17 – 18h
presentation and exchange with Urban Rooms Network
18 – 21h
swampy discursive dinner
Programm
Several University Seminars are spening time on site this semester. Three years after the first edition of the Free Radicals, this year there will be another Open Call for on site experimentation at Floating University directed towards teacher-less, self-organised student groups, willing to follow their own interests and ready to research outside the walls of their own institution. On July 17 we are welcoming all participants of the Floating Learnscapes on site for the SWAMPOSIUM.
Habitat Unit, Chair for International Urbanism
Technische Universität Berlin, Master in Architecture, Master in Urban Design, Master in Architecture and Typology
Spectral Natures – From queer ecologies to urban practice
18 April – 18 July 2024
Dr. Christian Haid
Society and nature have often been viewed as separate, with an uneven power dynamic between human and non-human realms. In the age of climate breakdown, technological fixes dominate as the main solution. In contrast, queer ecology as a growing transdisciplinary approach, challenges heteronormative, anthropocentric views and seeks to transcend binaries like culture vs. nature and male vs. female. It acknowledges the fluidity and diversity of identities within human and non-human spheres, celebrating the unusual and messy realities of cohabitation. Queer ecology aims to dismantle systems of oppression, shifting the marginal to the center, and cultivating inclusive relationships with the environment and all living beings, honoring the widest spectra and the pluriverse.
In this research-driven studio, we are exploring queer ecologies and urban natures from multiple angles. We analyze ecofeminist utopias, indigenous knowledge, and queer community practices. Through case studies and readings, we develop alternative urban strategies rooted in queer ecology. The studio includes inputs, field trips, lectures, film screenings, and workshops that are also open to others besides the participating students.
https://habitat-unit.de/en/teaching/sose-2024-spectral-natures/
@spectralnatures
Universität der Künste, Architektur, Studio Raumproduktion
Porous Architecture – the hospitable bog
15 April – 19 July 2024
Markus Bader, Silvia Gioberti, Juan Chacón
Was, wenn wir – wie Bruno Latour schreibt – nie modern waren und dichotomie-basierte Denk- und Handlungsmuster ungenügend sind? Natur – Technik, Mensch – Umwelt, Kultur – Wissenschaft sind Begriffspaare, die für dieses Denken symptomatisch sind. Die Klimakrise zeigt, dass wir verbundene Formen des Denkens und Handelns brauchen, integrierte Formen des Architektur-Machens.
Mit dem Projektzyklus Poröse Architektur suchen wir Wege, Räume öko-sozial zu (ko)produzieren. Das Entwurfsprojekt „das gastfreundliche Sumpfgebiet“ fokussiert auf Porosität, Gastfreundschaft und das Sumpfgebiet.
Poröse Architektur kann vielfältige Beziehungen ausdrücken. Architektur trennt oft – innen und außen, warm und kalt, menschlich und nicht-menschlich. Wie kann eine Architektur erreicht werden, deren Grundparadigma die Verbindung ist? Eine Architektur, die Lebensraum ist und sich mit lokalen Ressourcen und Techniken verbindet?
Gastfreundschaft bedeutet „making space for others“. Sie beinhaltet Vertrauen, Offenheit, Großzügigkeit und Einladung zum Austausch. Wir untersuchen Raumkonfigurationen und erzeugen Situationen der Gastfreundschaft.
Ein Zukunftsszenario ist, dass Floating entsiegelt und eine Sumpflandschaft hergestellt wird. Das Betonbecken wird zum Biotop mit einer Lern- und Forschungsenklave. Wir wollen lernen, wie wir daraus Architektur sumpfiger machen können.
Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, Freie Kunst und Kunstwissenschaften (Kooperationsseminar)
Sumpfgebiete
31 May – 2 June 2024
Antje Majewski, Ursula Ströbele
Auf dem Gelände des ehemaligen Flughafens Berlin-Tempelhof befindet sich die Floating University, ein „Naturkultur Lernort“ rund um das dortige Regenwasserrückhaltebecken, wo sich eine Vielzahl an Pflanzen und Tieren angesiedelt hat und eine urbane Landschaft entstanden ist. Seit 2018 organisiert ein Verein verschiedenste Veranstaltungsformate auf diesem Areal, bietet gleichermaßen eine inspirierende Plattform für unser Seminar. Sumpfgebiete wird in Kooperation mit Raul Walch, Gründungsmitglied des Vereins und Künstler, im Rahmen der Serie Learnscapes stattfinden. Im Zentrum stehen Texte zur Dritten Natur, Ökofeminismus und queeren Ökologien (u.a. von Gilles Clément, Donna Haraway, Astrida Neimanis, Val Plumwood, Zoe Todd, Annie Sprinkle/Beth Stephens, Anna Tsing), die gemeinsam diskutiert und beschrieben, anschließend in einer performativen Textcollage zusammen mit den anderen künstlerischen Arbeiten vorgestellt werden. Gäste aus der künstlerischen und kuratorischen Praxis (Anne Duk Hee Jordan und Anguezomo Mboulou Mba Bikoro tbc) ergänzen die Beiträge.
Ein Sumpf ist ein ständig nasses, morastiges Gelände mit von Wasser durchtränkter, schlammiger Erde. Im übertragenen Sinne verkörpert der Sumpf auch dubiose, zweifelhafte, unüberschaubare Zustände, die Fragen und Klärung bedürfen. Sumpfgebiete steht für alternative Formen der Wissensgenerierung und de-learning, für das Wasser in uns und urbane Natur(en), in deren Sumpf wir uns begeben, um Begriffen und Fragen zum Natur-Kultur-Verhältnis mit künstlerisch-wissenschaftlichen Methoden produktiv zu begegnen.
alle Fotos von Antje Majewski
Berlin International University – Architecture – Sustainable Material Practice
A Sustainable Skin for Floating – designing a façade
Mai – Juni 2024
Rasa Weber
In times of global environmental change, we – as architects and designers – must develop new responses to devastating ecological events. The challenges posed by the Anthropocene not only concern the protection of natural landscapes but also demand a fundamental reinvention of our building practices in the urban context.
While architecture as a discipline has long provided a home exclusively for human needs, the human-made habitat is slowly opening up to more-than-human life in the wake of the debate on multispecies design, sustainability and critical ecology. The façade in particular – the building envelope or architectural skin – can become an important bioreceptive medium that provides a home for a variety of inhabitants.
In the „Sustainable Material Practice“ course, we will examine the interface between human and more-than-human life very concretely by looking at the façade. Together with the Floating University construction team, we will discuss possible application-oriented scenarios for the planned redesign of the Floating in fall 2024. In this way, the design results of the course can contribute not only theoretically but also practically to the sustainable design of one of Berlin’s most important experimental construction projects.
Universität der Künste Berlin, Fakultät Gestaltung, Studiengang Architektur
Fachgebiet Digitales und Experimentelles Entwerfen
Studio – MUD ROBOT
Sommer Semester 2024
Prof. Giovanni Betti, LB Anna Bajanova, WM Christian Schmidts, T Angely Angulo Meza
The MUD Robot Studio explores the possibilities of technology and natural materials to create temporary habitats for humans and non-humans. They focus on hands-on experimentation to construct structures in the basin of the Floating University, aiming to expand activities and promote controlled rewilding.
Using exclusively natural materials like clay and wood, the studio employs robotically controlled clay deposition, or clay 3D printing. This precise method allows the creation of structures that support people as well as local flora and fauna, including birds, insects, plants, and small mammals. The studio tests the hypothesis that clay 3D printing can enable beneficial habitats for both humans and the environment.
Kunsthochschule weissensee berlin,
MA Raumstrategien, weiterbildende Studiengang
(PARA)SITES
07 May – 02 July 2024 (seminars on site)
02 July 2024, 6 – 11 pm (1 day exhibition with activation of installative works)
Prof. Pauline Doutreluingne
How can we learn from other forms of existence and cohabitation and explore parasitic ways of creation? We usually understand parasitic relationships as a binary distinction between two separate entities: host and parasite. How can we expand our notions and create artworks inspired by broader, beyond binary, ecological and communal contexts in which host-parasite relationships survive and thrive?
The figure of the parasite offers artists a means of surveying, articulating, questioning and contaminating relationships, a tool for identifying gaps, interdependencies, differences and positions within affective relationships. Through this observation and redistribution of component logics and positions within systems, the parasite becomes an expert in the patterns of its host and can then subvert and redirect them.
Our interest in parasites is in how they negotiate their surroundings and how their presence provokes responses – how certain implicated bases can become productive for change; how certain infiltrations by those routinely excluded can disrupt the status quo. Parasitism allows us also to talk about hosting and hospitality, about symbiosis and mutualism, about queer entanglements and adaptivity, about collective perspectives and envisioning spatial strategies through the eyes of the others.
The aim is to explore the concept of parasitism and hosting through various learning sessions and the creation of spatial and ephemeral artistic interventions on the site of the Floating University during the summer semester of 2024, working site-specifically and in dialogue with the existing programme of the Floating University.
https://kh-berlin.de/studium/fachgebiete/ma-raumstrategien/ma-raumstrategien
