Constructive Land Berlin/Brandenburg: Outcomes of the First Bauhaus Earth Fellowship
We are pleased to present the results of ‘Constructive Land Berlin/Brandenburg’, our BE-FELLOW project with Material Cultures! As our very first BE-FELLOWs, Material Cultures’ unique expertise, practice, and collaboration offered a fundamental contribution to the Bauhaus Earth Fellowship Program (BE-FELLOW). The BE-FELLOW program, a collaboration with Experimental, is a fellowship program fostering practice-based, experimental, and research work for sustainable architecture transformations.
Fellowship outcomes: From research to demonstration
“We really valued the opportunity to explore this incredibly important landscape typology alongside Bauhaus Earth and the Experimental Foundation. In working to understand the extraordinary potential of rewetting landscapes across the globe, we met farmers, material manufacturers, builders, and ecologists working on innovative paludiculture and construction practice. The project shows the potential for landscape conservation and material production to go hand in hand, and a lot of the findings from this collaboration are being applied in our work across the practice. We look forward to building on this work in the future.”
— Material Cultures
In their BE-FELLOW project ‘Constructive Land Berlin/Brandenburg’, Material Cultures focused on the use of paludiculture, or materials cultivated on rewetted peatlands, in construction. The project consisted of a 1:1 prototype demonstrating the use of these materials and a research report.
The two-part prototype was built in the Bauhaus Earth Lab using various paludi-based materials such as reed, cattail (Typha), wetland grass, willow, and alder. Through the use of carbon-negative materials cultivated on rewetted peatlands, it aims to tangibly demonstrate a regional, bio-based building industry and thereby inspire and support peatland carbon capture.
You can read more about the paludiculture prototype here, or see it live at Freiraum in der Box in Berlin until July 4, 2024!
Published in English last year and now available in German, our comprehensive research report delves into the intricate ecosystems of wetlands, shedding light on their importance. It highlights the pressing need for rewetting peatlands in Brandenburg and the potential for wetlands to provide the region with carbon negative construction materials. Using the Sernitzmoor area in Brandenburg as a case study, the report examines how a land practice that promotes peatland carbon capture and the decarbonisation of the construction sector could be implemented at scale to deliver climatic, environmental, and economic benefits.
We would like to thank Material Cultures and Experimental for their fruitful and insightful collaboration. We look forward to continuing this inspiring work and growing the BE-FELLOW community together!
Read the report in German and English
We are pleased to share the much-awaited German translation of the research report ‘Wetlands and Construction: An opportunity for Berlin-Brandenburg’ under the title ‘Moore: Potentiale für die Zukunft des Bauens’.
You can download the wetlands report for free below, or order your print copy via Lulu.com.
Wetlands and Construction: An opportunity for Berlin-Brandenburg [EN]
Publishers
Material Cultures, Bauhaus Earth, Experimental, Lulu.com
Authors
Summer Islam, Daria Moatazed-Keivani
Contributors
Matthias Ballestrem, Alexine Sammut, Paloma Gormley, Shreya Sarin, Margit Kraft, Xiao Fang
Copy-Editors (EN)
Krish Nathaniel, Kristina Rapacki
Translation (DE)
Matthias Ballestrem
Copy Editors (DE)
Sara-Lusic Alavanja
Graphic Design
Villalba Studio
Photography
Zara Pfeifer
Lucas Treise, BioFilm