B+ PROTOTYPING

The B+ PROTOTYPING WORKSHOP occupies a former GDR industrial building — once a coal and graphite storage silo — in Berlin-Lichtenberg that had fallen out of use. A place that, like many others, lost its purpose because society changed. Once a site of production, it now stands as a reminder that systems themselves — political, economic, cultural — can shift. And with them, both our needs and our spaces transform. One could say that the story of this place, its past, already contains the story of its future: the transformation of how we live together. The idea was to create a workshop for prototypes – prototypes for living. Objects that explore all scales of space: from the closest layer of clothing, through the design of functional objects, to architecture and its governance, the systems and rules that shape our coexistence.

Although these prototypes differ in scale and medium, in material and format, they are united by shared values: we have reached the limits of a system and must find new ways of practice that do not come at the cost of people or the planet. Prototypes are not finished objects – they are processes. Thus, there is no single answer produced in this place. But together we research by creating things that last, that are locally produced, that reuse existing materials, that strengthen and build communities. The workshop operates within this framework, which allows different practices to act, experiment and collaborate. It provides space to build, repair and rethink.

The building itself is part of this experiment. Its adaptive reuse mirrors the philosophy it houses: seeing potential rather than risks, doing rather than complaining, designing something strong instead of lamenting what’s lost, celebrating different forms of beauty, having fun and doing a lot with little. Here, the future is not imagined as a distant ideal but tested in practice, step by step, prototype by prototype. Each object, space and rule built within this framework is an attempt to design the conditions for another way of living and working. One that learns from both the past and the future to build a more lasting present.

with ANALOG | bplus.xyz | CTP. TP.P. | Anton Defant | Jan Omer Fack | Matthias Gschwendtner | HouseEurope! non-profit | Reidar Mester | Lotti Defant (NETZWERK) | PALAM | Jonathan Simon-Weidner

Words by OLAF GRAWERT

Photography by LEA GREUB