Allotment garden associations are a quirky and fascinating microcosm, and the garden arbor is too. So insanely German, the small houses, often built or extended, follow a set of rules no one has written down but everyone more or less follows. They’re built in a resource-efficient manner, but not always environmentally-friendly. Leftover materials and scraps are often used to create temporary works of art until the next extension or conversion is carried out. The German Allotment Garden Federation (BKD), together with the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, has courageously taken on this particular issue aiming to rethink the arbor from the ground up. The project is called “Nara“, and is intended to be capable of many things: a natural space and garden house in one that combines sustainable construction, inclusive thinking and contemporary design, with the option of expansion possible.
The result is a well-thought-out house on sixteen square meters, which has an extremely clever room layout — covered terrace, airy interior, and integrated equipment room. It’s built from untreated spruce wood, modularly expandable, barrier-free, and biodiversity-promoting. Insect hotels? Nesting boxes? Green roof? Everything is possible. The exhibition at the German Allotment Garden Federation is now showing the 1:1 prototype (in the garden, of course) and the entire development process during Berlin Design Week: from the first sketch to the finished model. And if that isn’t enough greenery for you, visit the accompanying exhibition “Stadt, Natur, Mensch – Kleine Gärten, große Wirkung” — see you in the garden!
Text: Inga Krumme / Photos: Bernd Hiepe, Ulrich Wessollek
German Allotment Garden Federation (BKD), Hermannstr.186, 12049 Berlin–Neukölln; map
“Kleingarten-Laube goes Berlin Design Week” 15.–18.05.2025 11–15h, 20.05.2025–31.10.2026
“Stadt I Natur I Mensch – Kleine Gärten, große Wirkung” until October 2026.
@kleingartenbund
