Our Garden – A Sanctuary for Community and Soul
Our Garden – A Sanctuary for Community and Soul
The next phase of our campus transformation is complete. Since 2019, the historic structure has been carefully and sustainably restored, with the infrastructure adapted accordingly. Now, the garden has also taken its “final” shape: an urban landscape that is both peaceful and inspiring—a place for tranquility, reflection, and transformation.
What began almost five years ago with a lot of concrete and just six trees has since grown by 125 trees and 25,000 plants, becoming a true garden. But a garden is never just a garden: it always reflects the spirit of the times, conveys prevailing societal ideas, and represents the staging of power, wealth, and culture. It also symbolizes the need to have nature close at hand—while simultaneously reflecting the desire to tame wilderness and shape it according to one’s own vision. A garden is always a negotiation between nature, culture, and humanity: at once a vision and a necessity.
The Vision: A Pioneer Landscape for People and Wildlife
Our vision is clear: we want to cultivate a pioneering landscape, allowing our ideas about society’s potential to take root and flourish in living greenery. How this landscape thrives and develops depends largely on the visions of those who engage with it.
This engagement began with our landscape architects from Harris Bugg Studio in London. Their team has created an impressive setting—a place of great biodiversity for both people and wildlife. A space that gives back to the city by fostering a natural, ecologically conscious atmosphere and nourishing the soul.
A significant portion of the previously sealed surfaces has been broken up and gradually greened. Instead of sending waste materials to landfills, they were creatively repurposed—used as plant substrate, mulch, and insect habitats.
The foundation of our planting consists of pioneer trees and plants. These thrive even in challenging environments, help to improve soil quality, and are equally loved by insects and birds: silverberries, birches, alders, rowan trees, and sea buckthorn with its vibrant berries. You’ll also find plenty of rosemary and lemon balm around the campus—or in the kitchen of our canteen.
Though our plants are resilient, they still need a sip of water during extreme droughts. To avoid reliance on drinking water, we collect rainwater in cisterns—fully aligned with our sustainability strategy, which also includes multi-stage water recycling systems.
What was once a gray industrial site has been transformed into a refuge—a place of tranquility, retreat, and growth. What we experience daily on campus has also garnered recognition in professional circles: In October 2024, Harris Bugg Studio received one of their many awards for designing our gardens—the Pro Landscaper Sustainability and Biodiversity Awardfor Best Commercial Design Project. This award honors the transformative landscape strategy of “radical re-greening” that has reshaped our site.
A Place of Continuous Change
The person who now nurtures, cares for, and helps our garden thrive is Sophia. She transforms it into a participatory living space that connects people.
Question: What makes this garden special to you—what sets it apart?
Answer: Unlike many corporate sites and urban developments, where green spaces are designed to be square, practical, and low-maintenance—often resembling green-gray deserts from an ecological gardener’s perspective—this garden is created with a real investment in sustainability and vitality. Many fascinating perennials and shrubs grow here that I rarely see in Berlin’s gardens. The design has a natural character, offering plenty of space for endangered insects, which I find especially important.
Question: What does the garden give you?
Answer: It is a place of growth, change, and transformation. Here, I have the opportunity to be part of the process of change and witness the emergence of natural habitats. For me, it is also a place of inspiration and connection—to many interesting people, organizations, companies, and projects. This space allows me to shape a piece of land and accompany its transformation from gray concrete into a living organism.
Question: What do you associate with this garden?
Answer: Myself. When I work with plants, in a garden, within a garden, a deep connection forms between me, the place, and the plants—and all the creatures that inhabit it. I observe how they develop, how they grow, blossom, produce fruit and seeds, and how some plants reseed, spread, and thrive. I see insects settling in, creating diverse habitats.
Question: What does your utopian garden look like?
Answer: My utopian garden is wild. Nature unfolds freely, and I intervene only gently. It is home to many native plants as well as edible and medicinal herbs. Leaves remain on the ground in most places, providing winter shelter for insects and nourishment for worms, fungi, and bacteria, eventually turning into humus. In my utopian garden, everything buzzes, hums, and crawls. Not only hedgehogs, salamanders, and ladybugs are welcome, but also snails, aphids, and mice. Not only beautiful flowers, fruits, and vegetables grow there, but also nettles and dandelions. Because in a healthy, natural ecosystem, everything belongs.
Fortunately, a garden is never truly ‘finished’: just like our vision of a constantly evolving society, it is always in the making – a work-in-progress, alive, in motion. We look forward to working with you to further develop and revitalise the campus: it’s meant to become, more and more, the fertile ground where creativity, sustainability, and purpose can take root – an inspiring place of of permanent change.