The Fragment: Paludiculture Prototype at The Great Repair

We are pleased to announce that our “Fragment”, a Bauhaus Earth paludiculture prototype, is currently on display at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin! This experimental prototype was designed by our first Bauhaus Erde Fellow (BE-FELLOW), Material Cultures, as part of the ‘Constructive Land Berlin/Brandenburg’ project. It is being shown in the exhibition The Great Repair alongside 40 other pieces embracing repair as a new design paradigm.

The Prototype

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. By tangibly demonstrating the use of carbon-negative materials cultivated on rewetted peatlands, it aims to promote peatland carbon capture and support a regional, bio-based building industry.

Bauhaus Earth would like to thank Büro Happold, Weichert Dachbau, Eileen Dorer Li, Michael Reindel, Gramitherm Insulation, Hiss Reet, LehmBauWerk, Stadtforst Prenzlau, and Holzindustrie Templin for their partnership in this project.

The Fragment is funded by Experimental Foundation as part of the BE-FELLOW programme.

Photo credit: David von Becker

The Exhibition

The Great Repair is a project by ARCH+ gGmbH in cooperation with Akademie der Künste, the ETH Zurich Department of Architecture, and the University of Luxembourg Faculté des Sciences Humaines. The group exhibition discusses contradictions between growth and ecology through the material culture of architecture and explores new strategies to reduce resource consumption and repair what already exists.

The exhibition will run until January 14, 2024. For more information about the potential of wetlands to supply the Berlin-Brandenburg region with carbon-negative construction materials, please download our Paludiculture Report.