DESIGN STUDIO, SoSe 2021
Emily Kelling, Dr. Moritz Ahlert, Prof. Dr. Philipp Misselwitz, Dr. Anna Steigemann

Homemaking
Practices and infrastructures by multi-locals in Berlin

Berlin as a city but also the life of its residents is embedded in complex translocal structures. Many people construct their life and home across multiple locations. These practices produce modes of (limited) commitment to the respective political communities and their spaces that seem to contradict urban policymaking. These interrelationships call us to reflect on concepts of place, home and citizenship.

To address these dynamics, the studio focused on people who move to Berlin and their homemaking practices and infrastructures. What are the practices of arriving and of making a life in this city? How and where do people find housing? How do the first housing arrangements look like? What support infrastructures do they access and work towards? What possibilities does the city offer?

We looked at three typical life trajectories. Their common starting point is a specific kind of employment, ranging from very precarious exploitative work conditions to privileged elite work. These diverse perspectives helped us to map a multi-faceted picture of Berlin’s housing system, of translocal homemaking and practices of solidarity. The studio was both analytical and propositional. We useed research methods from the social sciences (interviews) as well as urban design methods (mapping). Based on this research, we developed urban design proposals to enhance existing infrastructures of care.