MA Design Studio, SOSE 26: Bogensee Ecologies - Compensation Laboratory
Authors: Claudius Kämpf, Domas Karazija, Michael Ushakov, and Selma Richter.
Compensation Lab couples ecological and social compensation — both programmatically and financially — on the premise that extensification of land and intensification of human use can happen simultaneously, not in conflict. Rather than treating nature compensation as an isolated legal-technical fix, the project turns Germany‘s Ökokonto instrument (§15 BNatSchG) into a shared civic practice: volunteers build compensation landscapes that in turn fund and host encounter spaces for civil-society groups who otherwise often lack space. Dissonance — not just historical, but also ongoing, present-day dissonance, that is often muted — is used deliberately as a spatial hook, giving it room to resonate and layering a sociopolitical narrative onto the ecological one; as designers, we leave this dimension open, providing space and organizational structure rather than prescribing its use. The model is tested at two pilot „lighthouse“ sites, each dissonant in its own register. At Bogensee, forest upgrading creates space in nature — usable also for multi-day gatherings — where Wandlitzer, Brandenburger, and Berliner come together to care for the nature they collectively profit from and value. At Mettmannplatz, opening up a formerly closed Brache wins back fought-for open space — soil unsealing and decontamination upgrade it ecologically — as a daily neighborhood living room, one that gives resonance to the muted, present-day dissonance of the immigration office (LEA) across the street, while also giving Brandenburgers a way into a different side of Berlin through the entry point of nature conservation.
Institutionally, a Verein anchors both sites, generating biotope succession and new financial means. Its territorial vision reaches beyond Bogensee and Mettmannplatz: once proven, the same legal and organizational negotiation can be applied directly to any other public land under the same ownership structure, letting individuals, civil-society organizations, and future e.V. project sites compensate at different scales — turning two pilots into a regional network of stewarded, entangled landscapes.