A Tree Grows in Wedding: Welcome to Das Baumhaus

Berlin is a city of ideas. It is a city of innovative start-ups, of cafes, pop-up shops and art galleries that all believe that ideas are worth pursuing. All these projects and innovations begin with a single seed of an idea, and in the case of the Baumhaus, this idea was planted one day almost ten years ago when Karen Wohlert, a German environmental activist, and Scott Bolden, a former New York-based designer and engineer, met on the S-Bahn.
The idea was simple: Karen and Scott had both recognized the need
for more spaces in Berlin for meaningful engagement, places where artists,
activists, environmentalists and change-makers could come together for
collaboration and connection. They envisioned
a place that would be not just another co-working space, bar, or café, but
rather a hub—a meeting place in which to create and foster a community centered
around sustainability and social change. As this idea for a community center developed,
it grew into the premise for Das Baumhaus: an indoor tree-house in
Wedding.
Why a tree-house? As the Baumhaus website explains, a tree-house
evokes playful and imaginative memories of playing and creating together as
children, and the design highlights the environmental aspect of the project.
The model of Das Baumhaus is a surreal Gaudi-meets-Lord-of-the-Rings style,
featuring a “tree” constructed around a central pillar which houses the
second-story loft. Extensive greenery colors the space with a natural, forested
aesthetic, and a vertical garden is planned to benefit from the south-facing
windows of the Baumhaus.
What began as a conversation on the S-Bahn is now an extensive
network with over three-hundred people from all over the world. Although the
space is still in construction, estimated to be “Phase 1” fully functional by
September 2016, the Baumhaus already hosts weekly bike-repair workshops,
meetings, workshops, and open office hours. Additionally, the network of people
behind the Baumhaus have also founded and hosted the Emergent Berlin Festival
for the past three years. The festival aims to connect social and ecological
projects with Berliners who want to learn more about sustainable initiatives
and look for opportunities to engage.
What separates the Baumhaus from so many other start-ups and
co-working spaces around the city is their unique inclusivity and community
connection. The Baumhaus seeks to connect and unite the existing diverse
population of Wedding as well as the ex-pat community. As signs all over the
space proudly display, the Baumhaus is an “Open Greeting Zone”, meaning that
anyone should feel comfortable introducing themselves to people they do not
know or joining a group of strangers. As co-founder Scott describes, this idea
is central to the Baumhaus, a place for meaningful engagement, where everyone is
welcome. Scott tells a story from the Emergent Festival, where he noticed a
group of Turkish women in headscarves sitting together at one of tables and
went over to join them: “Since the entire area was
an 'Open Greeting Zone', I decided to try it out. So I walked up to their
table, sat down and said hello. What followed was an hour long fun,
informative and engaging conversation. Not only were we cracking each
other up but also figuring out how we could collaborate to make our
neighbourhoods better places.”
In another story, Scott tells how he met some
of the Roma men who were often hanging out on the sidewalk outside the Baumhaus,
how after showing them the space, Scott invited them to an event that night.
The event was an Improvisational Groove Orchestra (IGO), just one of many
events happening in the raw space of the Baumhaus. The IGO is a candlelight
improvised a cappella jam—just people standing in a circle, using their voices
to build a sound and sing and collaborate together. Scott describes the group
that night: “young Roma dudes, ex-pat hipsters, middle class German
intellectuals, scruffy creative types and even a couple of retirees. We had
some really authentic human connections between everyone and a really nice jam
session that night.”
Besides connecting with the local community, the
Baumhaus has already been in active collaboration with many other
sustainability and social justice projects around Berlin as well as having
forged connections with international activists. As anyone who has ever come up
with an innovative and slightly eccentric idea already knows, realities must
also be dealt with. After years of planning and strategizing, the Baumhaus has
a thorough operating model and plans to generate income through several areas:
space rentals, courses and workshop fees, and selling products and services
from the network of collaborators. The project currently is hosting a crowdfunding campaign until July 17 to raise funds to finish
construction on several projects.
What seems so surreal and yet so incredibly
poignant and inspiring about the Baumhaus is its growth—from an idea to a
tangible space and network of hundreds of people from different countries,
backgrounds, and expertise. The Baumhaus seems to symbolize something about the
dynamic nature of innovation and growth in Berlin, that an idea is worth
believing in.
By Selene Ross
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