Advanced Design
Professors: Jonas Coersmeier and Gisela Baurmann
Summer 2011


To study the history of Tempelhof Airport is to trace decisive moments in German and Berlin history: From its use as an experimental airfield in the 19th century, through the dramatic events during the 1948–49 airlift, to the large-scale international landscape and urban design competition held in 2009, the “Tempelhofer Feld” reflects glory and abyss of German ingenuity and political stance.

While there has been much speculation, many informal ideas and formal design proposals for the airfield since the airport was closed in 2008, very little attention has been given to the Tempelhof Airport building itself. This neglect can appear puzzling given the enormous historic, symbolic and spatial presence of the structure. It is one of a few pure-bred fascist buildings and, given its size and programmatic specificity, poses many challenges, so that any engaged discourse will aim to question its uncontested landmark status.

We consider the building’s challenges a great opportunity that makes the old terminal building and its adjacent ground an ideal testing ground for architecture and energy futures. Its conditions pose an exceptional opportunity for speculative ecological scenarios that play out at the intersection of building and landscape, structure and field, occupation, recreation and production.

The Pratt Berlin 2011 projects develop alternate uses for the Tempelhof Airport Terminal. The research addresses several key issues, including current programmatic, social, and technological needs within the city of Berlin. Proposed programs include a Living Material Research Facility, a Media Lab Berlin, an Institute for Urban Farming, a Sports Complex and more. Every project generates a unique pliable syntax of spatial, structural, and material responses, which engage the physical and cultural realities of Tempelhof Airport.

Pratt Berlin is an international summer program at Pratt Institute, School of Architecture. The program organizer is Jonas Coersmeier, who teaches in collaboration with Gisela Baurmann and Justin Snider.

 

By Lauren Stetekluh, Robert Hughes, and Seo Hee Lee

The global reality of food futures is one where food is no longer trusted. As people no longer understand how to interact with products, societies rely on packaging instruction and expiration dates to communicate with what they consume. The impact of foodborne illnesses struck the uneducated future hard.

The answer to Berlin’s strife lies at the former candy-bomber airfield, where Tempelhof has become a place of cooperation. The hybrid program is based off a cooperative structure which draws the public into the production processes of growth, harvesting, packaging, selling and distribution; in return those who participate will receive goods and social services.

Different levels of commitment are offered; from those who wish to participate by buying goods at the market, by bringing their families to harvest apples, volunteering their free time to farming, or renting their own individual schrebergarten. Social interaction is therefore knitted into the growth centers, with the added opportunities for mingling at the various eateries and drinkeries on the premises. Tempelhof has become a new public arena and city forum, a place dedicated to social communication over the ultimate unifie.