Building Community Spaces - Wulkow

Building Community Spaces – Wulkow

From concept to realization, this project captures my process of turning a vision for communal space into a living, functioning environment.

In my 3rd semester, I had the chance to work independently on this project, starting with concepts rooted in local culture, sustainability, and participatory design. Through collaboration with residents, we co-created architectural and spatial ideas that responded directly to their needs and the natural surroundings. Over time, these ideas materialized: new communal structures, gathering spaces, and installations were built, refined, and woven into everyday life.

This journey is about more than buildings—it’s about cultivating connection, agency, and shared responsibility. From first sketches to inhabited space, each step involved iteration, collective engagement, and creative problem-solving.

Wulkow and its Eco-Storage

What is Wulkow? A street, three paths, and about 150 quirky inhabitants? An eco-village near the German-Polish border where once a UFO supposedly landed? Wulkow is many things, but for me it’s simply home. Surrounded by fields, moors, and lakes, this is where I grew up.

Living in tune with the environment comes naturally to most people here. They know where the milk and eggs come from, and where the farmer’s cows are grazing. Almost everyone tends a garden—some more fruitful than others.

For us, being “eco” just means being normal.

At the heart of the village stands the Ökospeicher—an old grain storage turned community space. There was, and still is, always something happening here. The local association is full of ideas and brings them to life with passion. Festivals, readings, and gatherings take place inside its walls. People from all over the world are invited to join and work alongside the villagers on projects that often last for weeks. That’s how treehouses, snail-shaped hills, terraces, and even entire new floors of the Ökospeicher came into being.