At the 17th exhibition at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Raumlabor Berlin reconstructs part of the ‘floating university’, an offshore laboratory for collective experimental learning and knowledge transfer, located in a Berlin watershed. The structure was open for three weeks in 2018, where it invited different university groups, initiatives, neighbors and other inhabitants to meet in a fruitful conversation.

At the Venice Architecture Biennial 2021, visitors can observe the Raumlabor project through a series of photographs, descriptions, drawings, models, as well as some reconstructed parts of the structure itself. According to the architects, the ‘floating university’ was carefully designed as a place where man-made architectures intertwine with the habitat of a multitude of other organisms.

In 2018, students and teachers from Berlin, Europe and elsewhere came together to build the campus with learning spaces, workshops, an auditorium, a laboratory tower for experimental water filtration systems, a kitchen, a bar and bathrooms. They created a space for the exchange of knowledge in experimental and educational formats, so that the ‘floating university’ encouraged the local and international public to explore the rainwater retention basin and the campus, as well as to participate in workshops, lectures , seminars, lectures in hot tubs, concerts and presentations.