Unbuilding Commons
New European Bauhaus Satellite Event 2026
At the heart of Unbuilding Commons are the existing structures and interventions at the experimental premises of SPENI and the architectural school of FHE — both designed and reclaimed structures that become subject and site of investigation at once. Students, craftspeople and collaborators from the local Handwerkskammer work together to strengthen, adapt and reactivate them: not as restoration, but as the retrofitting of experimental structures for new use. Through workshops, digital analysis and hands-on fabrication with our valued partners at Handwerkskammer Erfurt, the project synthesizes competencies across disciplines — navigating hybrid constructive logics between raw timber and steel, between existing condition and new intervention towards the 1:1 realization of a hanging post. The student body joins as active participants in the reprogramming of the structures, making the process itself a form of shared authorship.
Unbuilding Commons is a Satellite Event of the New European Bauhaus Festival 2026 — one of a network of locally organized events taking place across Europe in parallel with the main festival in Brussels (June 9–13). Hosted at SPENI in Erfurt, it proposes a temporary space for exchange, collaborative learning and critical unlearning at the intersection of material culture, craft knowledge and circular building practice.
Image Credits: c SPENI
Project Credits:
Cosima Heinz, Katja Teich, Luis Liermann, Johannes Fleischer, Martin Täubert (Tutors), Jochen Reindanz, Handwerkskammer Erfurt, Holz-21-regio, Luise Rellensmann BBDB/Hochschule München, Katja Fischer Stiftung Baukultur Thüringen (Partners), Jannis May (Fabrication Tutor), Frank Bauer, Markus Lager, Stefan Neuhäuser (Direction)
The project is supported by The Festival of The New European Bauhaus and CZS Wissenschaftskommunikation by Carl Zeiss Stiftung.