Das Baumhaus

This project is all about sustainability - to bring our relationships to ourselves, to others and to our planet into some kind of stable balance, because that's basically what we want for everything we care about.

We are bringing together neighbors, local changemakers, social and ecological projects and people who would like to get active. We believe local community, culture and face-to-face encounters between like-minded people can make all the difference.

As this crowdfunding campaign is running, we're already renovating a 140m2 space in Berlin Wedding. As a (barrier free) project space, it will provide place and support for meetings, collaborations and for bringing ideas into reality.

Building updates, events and other news: www.baumhausberlin.de/en/crowdfunding

With your support, we can build the Baumhaus as a beautiful, multifunctional and inspiring space, creating an environment where people from diverse backgrounds feel welcome.

We have collaboratively dreamed out concepts and design for the space. There are especially three things we would love to build:

• Vertical gardens to bring nature, ideas about urban permaculture and caring for plants into the space. It's also a cooperation with our local community garden Himmelbeet - we'll grow their seedlings in the spring time.

• Clay walls for the 25sqm seminar room to create a comfortable environment for all kinds of gatherings and work sessions to come. Clay will help regulate temperature, sound and air quality and bring some earthy beauty into the space.

• An "indoor-treehouse": a 40sqm platform in the main room. Not only will this area add extra seating and viewing space but will also create new perspectives from which to meet friends and transform our dreams into realites... What's bringing people together and catalyzing their actions in our project so far, has a lot to do with realizing a common dream of building a tree house. It's a manifestation of a powerful metaphor that can bring our project to the next level.

This is a project that creates real impact on the local level now and it can be a model project to be replicated and improved upon.

There are really cool rewards from people of our network. And you'll get the gratitude of the many people who've been working for years to make the project happen, and of those who will use the Baumhaus space in the years to come (at least until 2023, that's how long our current lease goes!).

And if you want to use the Baumhaus with your own projects and organisations for seminars or social and ecological events, then you have the chance to already pre-book the Baumhaus space.

• Seminar Room: 25 sqm multifunctional seminar room with clay walls, coffee and tee (all prices incl. VAT): 1 hour: 30€, 2 hours: 55€, 4 hours: 100€, 1 day: 180€

• The whole Baumhaus: 60 sqm main room with vertical gardens, 25 sqm seminar room, professional kitchen, variable seating, beamer and sound system (all prices incl. VAT): 4 hours 450€, 1 day 600€, 1 weekend 1.700€

Please note: We can't host loud partys, and of course the Baumhaus is not a space for unsustainable projects. www.baumhausberlin.de/en/kriterien

With 15.000€ we can buy the materials, tools and equipment needed for our artists, designers, carpenters and volunteers to build 4 types of vertical gardens in the main space and clay walls in our seminar room. This includes the costs of organizing and running workshops where our professional builders will teach and support our volunteers in completing these projects.

With another 15.000€ we can build the indoor-treehouse which includes: filing the building application and engineering statics check plus getting all materials needed; mainly wood, screws and brackets.

Timeplan

July - August 2016: As soon as we will reach our funding goal, we'll start building four different prototypes of vertical gardens into the space, organizing workshops for building the clay walls (the building process will take between four to six weeks). Then the Baumhaus will open!

January - February 2017: Begin of next year, we'll close the space until February and build the "indoor-treehouse". We'll build the final version of vertical gardens that proved to be sustainable plus we'll start grow seedlings for our neighborhood garden.

Anything above our 30.000€ goal will help to pay back some of the private loan of 80.000€ Scott & Karen got to get started, in addition to 11.000€ we collected in a first crowdfunding at the very beginning of the project in 2012, to start building and finance the basic renovation.