![Lending Libraries for Berlin: Poro[city] for the Green and Grey](https://www.graduateshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-05/240429_adelakun_harris_maxwell_drawing_stack_Page_96.jpg)
Carl Harris
Lending Libraries for Berlin: Poro[city] for the Green and Grey
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Project description
In the urban context of Berlin, Schöneberg is a vibrant metropolian borough south of Tiergarten in the heart of the city where the charm of the enclosed courtyards linger. Since the 1920s during the Weimar Republic, the borough was an important meeting place for the lesbian community and an area where gay people were able to express their personality. On the north-western corner of Potsdamer Strasse was an acclaimed entertainment venue called Dorian Gray which was inspired by the famous novel by Oscar Wilde. Although the venue has since been replaced with a hotel, caught in the curtilage of the 'Components of the Craft' site, the theme of subculture, music and performance is still evident in the community, and underlies the foundations of the Schöneberg. Ruth Margarete Roellig writes in her city guide published in 1928, that the importance of the area can be traced to her times when lesbian women would spend their time in Schöneberg as they could enjoy their own identity with a sense of belonging and invitation. Inspired by the stories of Roellig, the history of Dorian Gray and other popular venues that are widely written about in its locality, the proposal seeks to better utilize the inner city blocks for use by the residents with a narrative that captures music and performance. The architecture seeks to provide equipment and facilities on loan to the residents, laying out the components needed for the residents to be able to host a yearly carnival for the local people to celebrate the richness that music and sport brings to life, in an area where performance and social activity is ingrained in its very history.
The project was completed in part collaboration and enjoyed with, Folahan Adelakun and Oliver Maxwell.
Components of the craft: elevated street gardens and music studios poised over the Potsdammer Strasse sidewalk.
Components of the craft: overall elevation of the street gardens and music studios poised over the Potsdammer Strasse sidewalk.
Components of the Craft: perspective view.
1 | Components of the Craft
As urban platforms for enabling public festivity in the Schöneberg neighborhood – recognizing and negotiating a convergence between music, craft and sport for developing creatives who live in the inner peripheral blocks of Berlin, we channeled our design efforts into creating a series of architectures to encourage the residents of each block to connect with one another through common activity. Each block would house a different kind of sport or music specialism and access would be created all four sides of the block where it doesn't exist already to make the inner courtyards - whilst enclosed - fully porous. The resident only access would be maintained as the degree of privacy is enjoyed by the residents. The spaces between would then become the 'lending libraries'; facilities to provide equipment and bookable spaces for loan in the same fashion as The Park in Motion - a scheme with similar ambitions providing sporting accessibility to all in Tiergarten. Together, they provide financial autonomy to those who wish to take up an instrument or sport of their choosing. Ultimately, creating active paths within the green (Tiergarten) and grey (Schöneberg) paths in the city.
The architectures' aim is to provide another means of conviviality which is characteristic of Berlin, and to invigorate a new sense of atmosphere which we feel has been lost with the closure of many popular venues such as Dorian Grey. Ultimately, we wish to advocating for healthy, enjoyable and meaningful relationships for people by being neighbors. Equally, we advocate for a healthy relationship between architecture and its context, in an act of stewardship and co-existence.
Taxonomy of spaces
Components of the Craft: Proposed ground floor plan; perspective view and east elevation. Rotring ink on cartridge.
Components of the craft: proposed tree planting plan, perspective view and south elevation. Rotring ink on cartridge.
Components of the Craft: sectional perspective
2 | The Park in Motion
Underlying the lending library scheme for Schöneberg was our investigation into Tiergarten, Berlin's eldest park. The Park in Motion [Lending Libraries for Tiergarten] builds upon the well respected tradition of sports within Berlin, voiced in the 2024 UEFA Euro Games. Taking place across ten stadiums, Olympiakark Berlin will participate bringing a wave of tourists and sporting fans to the city. The stadium is located West of Tiergarten, where the 1936 Olympics were once hosted and anticipates to welcome 2.5 million visitors in the summer of 2024. With the stadium providing so much offering for the spectators of football, the act of ones participation in sport is significantly undervalued, especially for those who live in the shadows of the stadium. The aim of The Park in Motion is to provide a new sporting complex for the aficionados
rather than athletes, the proposal will specifically focuses on making sports more accessible to the average Berlin resident.
The scheme is made up of 12 pavilions, 2 courts and 4 pitches across the northwestern tip of Tiergarten, capitalizing on the free loan of sporting equipment as an argument to create new, lightweight and temporary builds in Tiergarten
for the average resident. Each pavilion seeks to respond to a specific sporting discipline or outdoor leisurely activity (such as cycling). The equipment can be could be used on-site, or taken away elsewhere in the city. Through an act of master-mapping, and drawing in scales that straddle between urbanism and architecture, the theme of participation through procession is enacted, and enlivened in both schemes for Berlin.
The Park in Motion: the lending library scheme for Tiergarten that led to its widening and reimplemenation in Schöneberg.
The Park in Motion: master-map tile 1.
The Park in Motion: master-map tile 2.
The Park in Motion: master-map tile 3.
The Park in Motion: inner peripheral protected gardens
The Park in Motion: ground floor plans
The Park in Motion: ground floor plans
The Park in Motion: ground floor plans
Components of the Craft: the proposals relation with the internal wall of the inner-city perhiperal block
The Park in Motion: master model
Schöneberg: 1:1000 model for experimenting with opportunities to expose flanking elevations of the blocks to create a more porous neighbourhood and host an internal architectures.
The Park in Motion: timber frame maquettes for its 19 architectures.
Field work
An excerpt from my Design Report prologue:
When writing this thesis, I was struck by sheer impact of the fall of the wall. Not only did I recognise this in person during my visit, or note it in passing conversations, but it was felt when I encountered its sheer dominance on the library shelves. Despite the significance of the truly important and anticipated event that changed the life of Berliners; searching for other subjects led me to reflect on my time away and what it was that attracts me to a place like Berlin. Perhaps, it's best described by author Peter Scheider. "What attracts young people to Berlin seems to be precisely what we feel is missing in more beautiful cities... the weirdness, perpetual incompleteness and outlandishness". I am convinced. Karl Scheffler wrote in his 1910 polemic Berlin ein Stadschicksal (Berlin: Fate of a City) that Berlin is condemned forever to be coming and never to being. If this is true - that it lacks everything that makes a big city - then it must be a place of fleeting transit and movement? An evolving enigma with more of a past and future than a present. Is it a city that is running away or is it one that is always in rewriting? Is Berlin an active urban machine?
Carl Harris
Lending Libraries for Berlin: Poro[city] for the Green and Grey
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