Department of Architecture - University of Thessaly

Lecture by Christof Mayer: "Acting in public"

30/03/2015

A lecture by Christof Mayer about the spatial practice of raumlaborberlin, explained through a series of projects.

raumlaborberlin is a group of 8 architects based in Berlin, founded in 1999. We work at the intersections between architecture, urban planning and art by means of performative, temporary interventions.

The focus of raumlaborberlin’s works is urban transformarrations and relationships between private and public space. Leftover and difficult to handle urban situations attract us. Artistic and architectural interventions serve us as tools of communication and open up new perspectives for alternative uses, collective ideals, urban diversity as well as difference. We explore and use what we find; the condition of the place and consolidate alliances between local actors and external specialists. The goal is an architecture that succeeds in melting space with subjective experiences, that lets people discover new qualities and leads to an alternative understanding of the city.

Our working method is interdisciplinary and combining different genres. We organize selected teams of experts for each project, linking members of raumlaborberlin with external specialists as needed. Our view of architecture doesn’t only connect to the build environment but rather to an experimental building laboratory for a participatory practice within the public realm. Architecture becomes the tool for finding and inventing the city of possibilities.