Author: Baumhaus Berlin

As part of our final push we have added some special new rewards to our crowdfunding featuring some nice offerings from social entrepreneur and activist Daniel Hires who has supported the Baumhaus from early on.

We sat down with him to share some of his thoughts on how to make the world a better place through Das Baumhaus and why he thinks people should support us!

Here is a short yet sweet interview about the Baumhaus project with Silke Gebel,  a member of the Berlin parliament for the Green party and speaker for environmental policy.

Do you agree with Silke? If so, please support our crowdfunding campaign. We have until the 17th July to reach our goal!

Check out these groovy fair-trade cotton Baumhaus T-shirts, available to all heroes donating to our crowdfunding campaign in the last days! Choose from one of these four colours, or any other of your choice.

Beautiful Baumhaus artwork designed and donated by Susan Sanford

Check out this great Tip article (in German) about hubs for social change in Berlin, written by our very own project manager, Anna-Marie Nehl!

Last Friday, Radio Eins broadcast live all day long from right in front of Das Baumhaus – they had chosen Gerichtstrasse as their latest most exciting street in Berlin for their ‘Schöne Straße’ programme. Listen to a lovely interview (in German) with Baumhaus Co-Founder Scott Bolden and volunteer Luise Graeff about the project here.

Wo: himmelbeet, Ruheplatzstr. 12, 13347 Berlin

Wann: Donnerstag 14.07.16 – 19.30 – 21.00

Wie “Zero Waste” können wir leben? Was können wir im Wedding als Teil der Nachbarschaft und Zivilgesellschaft machen? Welche Rahmenbedingungen muss die Politik im Land setzen, um Berlins Müllberg zu reduzieren?

WeddingWandler, Baumhaus und die beiden grünen Landespolitikerinnen Antje Kapek (Fraktionsvorsitzende) und Silke Gebel (umweltpolitische Sprecherin) laden ein zum Austausch und Brainstorming ins sommerliche himmelbeet Low Waste Café. Wissende, Engagierte und Interessierte sind herzlich willkommen!

Als Input wird Silke Gebel ihre Thesen zu Zero Waste in Berlin vorstellen, und über den Stand der Dinge und mögliche Ansatzpunkte in Berlin informieren. WeddingWandler und Baumhaus engagieren sich zum Thema Zero Waste in ihrer Nachbarschaft. Nachdem sie gemeinsam mit dem himmelbeet den EU-Award für ihren Beitrag zur Europäischen Woche der Abfallvermeidung gewonnen haben, soll es jetzt weitergehen. Auf der Veranstaltung wollen sie ihre neue lokale Zero Waste Initiative vorstellen, diskutieren und Ideen sammeln.

**** Hintergrundinfo: Zero Waste für Berlin *****

In Berliner Privathaushalten laden jährlich mehr als 800.000 Tonnen Siedlungsabfälle in den Tonnen. 70% davon werden verbrannt und nur energetisch genutzt. Bei jeder Verpackung, die im Mülleimer landet, geht Energie verloren, Ressourcen werden verbraucht und die Umwelt belastet. Zero Waste ist das Konzept der Abfallvermeidung – Ressourcen werden werden wiederverwendet und möglichst geschlossene Kreisläufe geschaffen.

Zero Waste für eine Stadt mit 3,5 Millionen Einwohner*innen, das klingt nach einer verrückten Idee. Aber Schritte zu Zero Waste wären durchaus gangbar. Warum zum Beispiel gibt es kein Mehrwegsystem für Coffee-To-Go-Becher á la Festivalbecher, was vom Land unterstützt wird? Und warum werden Alt-Elektrogeräte auf den Wertstoffhöfen direkt verschrottet und keinem Funktionstest unterzogen?

Zero Waste ist in erster Linie Abfallvermeidung, denn der beste Abfall ist der, der gar nicht erst anfällt. Und es ist sogar europäische und deutsche Gesetzgebung mit der sogenannten Abfallhierarchie, nach der die Vermeidung der Abfälle oberste Priorität, gefolgt von Weiternutzung und Recycling hat. Erst dann ist die Verbrennung mit einem hohen Heizwert gestattet. Letztere Regelung wird wohl demnächst gekippt werden, Recyclingunternehmen und Umweltverbände hatten auf Einhaltung der Abfallhierarchie geklagt und moniert, dass zu viel Müll verbrannt wird.

Denn so sieht es auch in der Berliner Realität aus: Der Haus- und Gewerbemüll wird verbrannt. Für einen kurzen Moment wird zwar Energie erzeugt, langfristig wird aber vor allem die „Ressource Kunststoff“ zerstört, für deren Herstellung Erdöl genutzt wird. Hier ist die aktuelle Abfallbilanz des Landes Berlin aus dem Jahr 2014.

Facebook Event

VIDEO (German language with english sub titles)

The Power of Volunteers! We still need your help!

Meet Sascha, a warm-hearted regular guy who has helped the project on and off for more than a year now. The vast majority of what has been done around the Baumhaus has been done by volunteers. Over 125 volunteer hours on average each week helping with everything from designing, building, developing event programming, cooking, documenting in text, video and imagery!

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On Tuesday, June 28th we had an open meeting in our treehouse to work on two of our vertical gardening systems. One of them is the hydroponic “Lush Jungle” system where plants will cover a large surface on the wall. The other one is the “vermiculture system”, a compost system with worms.

In the last few weeks, Miriam and Tim, both Urban Garden and Free Space Management students at local Beuth University, calculated which plants work well for the big hydroponic system. Anna looked up pictures online and cut them out so we could place them next to each other to design the garden. But there were more suggestions for plants delivered this evening. The two experts explained why the system had to be homogenous and simple and why flowering plants are a bad idea. Eventually, we will select five final plants which we will cut out on the computer so we can design the garden. The whole system should be ready by the end of August/beginning of September. In a next step we also have to think about setting up the watering system in the cellar.

The vermiculture group was very blessed to have Hany Elkhodary, Co-founder of Würmer Hof, come all the way from Frankfurt Oder to meet and help out with the worm compost system. He had some valuable insights for us: Give the worms some leaves to balance the carbon/nitrogen levels. Separate the soil from the worms by holding a light over the soil, then scrape away the first layer and so on. We should also cut the kitchen scraps into pieces. Worms won’t travel from one box to another, we should just duplicate the same system in the other box.

Next up: Get the worm gang together, harvest some fresh compost, find a way to chop the kitchen waste in a WG-friendly way.

This will be our first session since major structures have been added to the room. I have a feeling this will be a very special evening… -Sb

Improvisational Groove Orchestra (I.G.O.) – a fun way to experience authentic connection and community through exploring a commonly created sound space. (links to examples below)

We meet every other Thursday to listen, respond, observe and curiously play with the sounds our voices create together. Our objective is to tune into the common feeling we are developing in the present moment.

Most of what we do is with our eyes closed. This allows everyone to be very focussed on only the sound space without any other distractions.

At each session we usually have more beginners rather than experienced singers; all levels and voice types are welcome. Scott will explain a few basic and intuitively understandable concepts to make it super easy to dive in and be jamming out within the first 1/2 hour.

It is a learning process in progress, each time balancing ourselves in volume and expression to merge into the group sound space, allowing everyone to hear and be heard, naturally developing our own musical styles.

The last times we explored further into the human sequencer game – a system where one person acts as a conductor, splitting the group into small parts, giving each small group unique impulses that than develop into one composition.

Feel most welcome to come and join us!

20:00: meet-&-greet and hangout

20:30: start warming up!

(please be on time, there are important things to explain before beginning)

• You can find recent and older tracks from previous IGO session in Das Baumhaus here: https://soundcloud.com/scott-bolden

• Here is a video showing another fun method with larger groups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjzmfpnZhDk

The address is Gerichtstr. 23 in the front house on the ground floor, you can walk in our door from the sidewalk. Please bring healthy snacks to share, we will have some drinks in the fridge on a donation basis, we also have hot water for tea & coffee.

* This is a free event for now, but we ask you to please generously donate whatever you feel the experience is worth. All your donations go toward helping us pay the rent while we build Das Baumhaus this Spring and Summer.

** Please also consider making a donation to our crowd-funding campaign so we can complete. If everyone who reads this donates 5€ and spreads the word we can really make this a crowd effort!
https://www.startnext.com/baumhausberlin

*** If you would like to help us finish building and designing Das Baumhaus then go here:
http://www.baumhausberlin.de/en/building/mitbauen/

Thanks!