Spielraum

By embracing this ambiguity, this project views the playground as a spatial apparatus through which organized freedom and belonging are questioned.

Designed by students in the Spatial Strategies master’s program at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin, “Spielraum” unfolds between HAU, M40, and the surrounding neighborhood around Mehringplatz in Kreuzberg, a place shaped by the promises of urban development and the pressure of displacement.

A collective, modular structure—a kind of entity or construction kit on wheels—aims to re-network public space as a shared living environment. As a parasitic vessel, it blurs institutional boundaries and invites unforeseen encounters. Through games—stimulated by objects, performances, sound, and journalistic practices—it opens up space for experimentation, spontaneity, and a redefinition of who is allowed to play and how.

Play turns out to be a test of freedom: a collective practice that explores boundaries and reclaims the right to appear differently, to gather, and to occupy space.

This project is being realized as part of the seminars “Carrying the City Otherwise” by Prof. Pauline Doutreluingne and “Elsewhere in Berlin: Architecture as Storyteller” by Tonderai Koschke in the Master’s program in Spatial Strategies at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin during the summer semester of 2026.