Re:future Lab

Now open! Exhibition „What if the Ocean Were a City“ of Designer Rasa Weber in cooperation with re:future lab, Matter of Activity Cluster of Excellence at Humboldt University Berlin, and ON WATER PARCOURS of Berlin University Alliance.

Come and explore what lies beneath the surface and the water.

Until 16 May, 2025
Tue - Sat, 12 pm - 6 pm
re:future lab
Reinbeckstr. 32, 12459 Berlin



Photos: Michael Pfisterer and re:future lab

As the year draws to a close, we would like to thank you - our amazing community of thought leaders, innovators and changemakers - from the bottom of our hearts.

2024 has been an incredible journey that we could not have accomplished without the enthusiasm, curiosity and support of so many. The highlight of the year was HOLITOPIA, the three-day forum for positive futures to explore and touch, which we were able to realise in this new dimension thanks to the prize money from Projekt Zukunft of the Berlin Senate and Berlin Partner. Many thanks to all the wonderful cooperation and knowledge partners, to the artists, design researchers, scientists, futurologists and experts.

We are curious to see what the future holds as we continue to explore new possibilities together!

Our team will ‘’dive off‘’ for the rest of December to rest, recharge and reflect, but we’ll be back in January with new insights, creative tools and resources.

In the new year, we’ll be back with some exciting new projects and formats to sow hope, strengthen your future mindsets, and guidance to help you create holistic futures in the here and now.

Until then, we wish you a happy holiday season full of peace, warmth and inspiration.

BYCATCH, modular art installation by and , will be featured at HOLITOPIA 24 – and we’re so much looking forward to it! The immersive sculpture consists of inflatable tetrapods in variable constellations and investigates permeable borders between human and non-human agents.

“The inflatables mimic mass-produced breakwaters developed in the 1950s to protect coastlines against erosion. Yet placing these concrete structures has choked countless ecosystems worldwide. …  In BYCATCH, the volume of the form remains the same while converting the material from polluting concrete to air. The objects undergo a revitalisation that explores their potential as connectors rather than separators. Instead of scattering energy, they generate a new form of resilience by interacting with their environment rather than opposing it.” (Hannah Blumas)

BYCATCH is part of our exhibition, it can be walked and climbed upon and provides a perfect environment for the talks and workshops of the festival program, to rethink and reshape what was made to divide into nurturing connections.



HOLITOPIA is an initiative by

Once declared WTFO (way too far out), the Berlin Oberschöneweide area is quickly transforming into one of the most vibrant environments for creativity and innovation, partly due to the density of impressive architectural landmarks from Berlin’s golden era of industrial production lining the banks of the Spree river. We consider ourselves very lucky to have found a fitting home for HOLITOPIA in this area, on the campus of HTW, Berlin’s largest university of applied sciences. Thanks for having us, !



Photo © HTW Berlin/Nikolas Fahlbusch

The re:future lab sets out to change the future. This requires a mind that can think in many directions, and Madeleine Schwinge is just such a mastermind. Having grown up in an entrepreneurial family, yet equipped with a strong passion for art, she oscillates between quite different worlds in her role as an artist, curator and systems consultant.

Listen: Link in Bio

In the Monopol podcast „Fantasiemuskel“, re:future lab founder Madeleine Schwinge spoke with Friedrich von Borries and Dr. Torsten Fremer about fragility, the courage to make mistakes and how art can help challenge the status quo and develop alternatives to the present. (In German).

Tune in on Spotify:
Monopol x Vorstellungskraft X
Fantasiemuskel - Kunst trifft Wirtschaft
Episode #29

Link in bio

Last week, , founder of the re:future lab, was invited to mit:twoch talk, a series by RRRArchitects. She gave a talk and discussed with the architects how to re-generate and re-world, about possible futures in museum architecture and what this has to do with systemic contexts and the principles of ‚creative intelligence’.

RRRArchitecture is a platform for an international network of specialists, architects, developers, engineers, publicists, economists, and scientists. Founded by Muck Petzet, they work together in project-specific teams to develop and implement solutions and strategies for various clients.

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE. We all know the 3Rs, symbolized by the three arrows in the ubiquitous recycling symbol. The RRR system, or "waste pyramid," was developed to provide clear guidelines and a hierarchy of strategies in waste management. In this system, Reduce, or avoid, is always the best option. The second is Reuse as much and as long as possible. Recycle is seen as a last resort, an option to be used only when reuse is not possible.

With his German Pavilion at the 13th Architecture Exhibition Biennale di Venezia in 2012, Muck Petzet introduced this system into the context of architecture: Could there be a similar "truth" in dealing with existing architecture? Is the best intervention also the least intervention? Is the hierarchy of strategies of avoidance, reuse and recycling applicable to the transformation strategies of existing buildings? The exhibition defined existing architecture and its embodied potential as a crucial resource for our future and promoted an affirmative attitude and a new understanding of the role of architects.

.petzet .xyz

🎙HOLITOPIA 2023, Symbiotic Politics.
Curated by Madeleine Schwinge
Moderated by Kimberly Bradley

How do you feel after the first landmark edition of HOLITOPIA? 💨

Unfiltered, immersive, hope, wonder, unlock, infra-thin, holistic, fragments, fragile, gap, fiction, utopia, re-configuration, dramaturgy, narratives, perspective, disruptive, subversive, critical, dialectics, semiotics, paradigm, epistemology, education, culture, cognition, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, natural intelligence, politics, democracy, ethics, togetherness, empathy, experience, perception, phenomenology, subject, object, human, life, matter, COHN, metabolism, symbiosis, friction, biotics, abiotics, biology, biodesign, nature, chaos theory, entropy, q***r ecology, regenerative, membrane, porosity, post-disciplinary, post-binary, hybrid, multispecies, artistic practice, art in context, poiesis, foresight, feedback loop, non-linear, circular, scalable, paralysis paradox, system design, gigamap, hypothesis, dissemination, mutation, flux, curve, what if, how to, trailblazers, pioneers.

Missed it?
🔜Stay tuned for the next editions in 2024.
📽Stay alert for official photos and videos. Coming soon.

🔊You feel a sense of kinship with us?
re:future lab brings a super-culture shift to innovative companies, creative industries and art institutions that feel hamstrung by over-standardized process and solutions. Our strength lies in our ability to fuse the most vanguard discourse and practice in art, design and architecture with futurology, science and technology.
Browse our website. Link in Bio.

Photo credit. The robotic dreams of an old decommissioned pink robot.

.htwberlin

Don’t miss!
HOLITOPIA 2023
Symbiotic Politics
September 7-8, 2023, Berlin
(-) Link in Bio

An immersive symposium fusing ART, DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, SCIENCES, TECHNOLOGY and FUTURE FORESIGHT to explore alternative futures. Feel the pulse of the next generation of pioneers.

//The line up (excerpt)

Ayumi Paul
7 Sept. 17-18.30
All Eyes Hear

"All Eyes Hear" is grounded in the artist's continuously expanding archive of rituals and practices of wholing. 

The shared practice invites participants to explore the fractal dimension of our realities and the non-linearity of time to co-develop languages that elevate our states of sensitivity. Recognizing our bodies as interfaces that connect beyond matter, the edition created specifically for the symposium is dedicated to the birch tree and its tongues and includes a concert and practices such as lucid dreaming and a participatory ritual-performance. In Paul's work co-shaping in the invisible realms is manifested as an artistic practice of creating relationships. It asserts that the "intelligence of the we" must be recognized, and can only be transmitted through the experience of it. Inventing and being invented simultaneously.

Photos Credit: Debora Mittelstaedt

Don’t miss!
HOLITOPIA 2023
Symbiotic Politics
September 7-8, 2023, Berlin
🔛Link in Bio

An immersive symposium fusing ART, DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, SCIENCES, TECHNOLOGY and FUTURE FORESIGHT to explore alternative futures. Feel the pulse of the next generation of pioneers.

🎙The line up (excerpt)

Ayumi Paul
7 Sept. 17-18.30
All Eyes Hear

"All Eyes Hear" is grounded in the artist's continuously expanding archive of rituals and practices of wholing. 

The shared practice invites participants to explore the fractal dimension of our realities and the non-linearity of time to co-develop languages that elevate our states of sensitivity. Recognizing our bodies as interfaces that connect beyond matter, the edition created specifically for the symposium is dedicated to the birch tree and its tongues and includes a concert and practices such as lucid dreaming and a participatory ritual-performance. In Paul's work co-shaping in the invisible realms is manifested as an artistic practice of creating relationships. It asserts that the "intelligence of the we" must be recognized, and can only be transmitted through the experience of it. Inventing and being invented simultaneously.

Photos Credit: Debora Mittelstaedt

A speculative project by one-of-a-kind architect and interior designer Anna Ćwik Studio. 👽💨
01.27.02.01 - 1.27.02.07 veil installation (2/3)

[virtual model, ai generated]

In a world where artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the design industry, following the work of talented AI designers can provide a glimpse into the future of creative innovation.

Anna Cwik is an interior designer based in Berlin who utilizes Midjourney—an independent research lab exploring new media of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species—to explore various design sectors from architecture, and furniture, to fashion.

🎙About the project:
The experimental investigation of anthropomorphism(s) depicts hybrid characters alongside speculative devices, spaces, and atmospheres.
Each actor, disregarding human or non-human, originates from the same curated algorithmic process.