Summer School
August 25th – September 7th 2025
This is an event held as part of the exhibition Trees, Time, Architecture! at the TUM Architekturmuseum in the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.
From August 25 to September 7 2025, the transdisciplinary summer school 'Verwaldung Kunstareal' (Afforestation Kunstareal) invites you to consider the future of our cities and help shape it.
What might a city look like if it grew with trees rather than over them?
The summer school invites you to rethink the Munich Kunstareal as a place of long-term ecological, social, and creative transformation. Taking inspiration from Joseph Beuys' 7000 Oaks and the documenta urbana, the programme is aimed at young designers and thinkers who view the city as a living, collective process rather than a finished object.
The summer school is open to students and recent graduates of architecture, landscape architecture, art, design, engineering, horticulture, arboriculture, and related disciplines, as well as anyone who wants to contribute to the creation of sustainable urban spaces.
The two-week programme comprises a three-day excursion and ten days of intensive collaborative work in Munich's Kunstareal district. Participants live, learn and create together in workshops, theory sessions, film screenings, walks and open discussions.
The focus is on the tree as a living, growing being, not as a decorative symbol. The question is how we can take its temporal dimensions — slowness, growth and duration — seriously, and translate them creatively into long-term processes. Rather than temporary interventions, the emphasis is placed on permanent perspectives that visibly impact urban spaces.
The resulting projects will then be presented to the public as part of the Trees, Time, Architecture! exhibition at the Architekturmuseum der Pinakothek der Moderne for a week.
The Summer School is a collaborative, process-oriented field of experimentation. Ideas emerge from everyday life and creative dialogue. Rather than seeking quick solutions, we are exploring new ways of thinking and designing the relationship between the city, nature and time.
Anyone interested in engaging across disciplines is warmly invited to help us plant new futures.
Preliminary schedule
Registration to the Summer School
FAQ
Where?
Architekturmuseum der TUM
in der Pinakothek der Moderne
Barer Str. 40
80333 München
When?
25. August – 7. September 2025
Language?
English
Costs?
450€ (Contribution towards food and accommodation)
Participants must cover their own travel expenses.
Accommodation?
DomagkAteliers, Halle50
Guests?
Duncan Lewis - Duncan Lewis Scape Arkitekter
Jake Ford - White Arkitekter
Mark Primack - Botanical Architecture and Tree Circus
Michael Wallraff - Trees and Space
Noël van Dooren - Drawing Time
Sonja Dümpelmann - Seeing Trees
Wilfrid Middleton - Living Root Bridges and Vernacular Architecture
Véronique Faucheur & Marc Pouzol - Atelier le Balto
Phillip Gruber - Growing Resindecy
Morningstar Konghtaw - Living Bridge Foundation
..and many more.
Team?
Prof. Ferdinand Ludwig
Kristina Pujkilovic M.A.
Christoph Fleckenstein M.A.
Lennard Höpfner M.A.
Amelie Steffen
Maximilian Atta
Pauline Wessel
Contact?
kristina.pujkilovic(at)tum.de
Image credits:
Image 1:
Key Visual Summer School
by strobo B.M.
Image 2:
Section and plan view of a forest segment, original drawing by Francis Hallé (150 × 136 cm)
© Hallé, Francis, Paris, 2019
Image 3:
Drawing with various sub-drawings from the island of Hombroich, part of an intervention at the Brücke Museum, 2022/2021–2024
© Atelier Le Balto, Berlin, Germany
Image 4:
Detail view of the augmented reality model of the root bridge in Nongbareh, Meghalaya, India
© Marco Pisano, Wilfrid Middleton, 2025
Image 5:
Global CO2 concentration, the emergence and use of coal in relation to the development of forests and architecture across different time intervals
© GOA Architecture
Image 6:
Pre-cultivated Baubotanik elements being installed at the plane tree cube
© TUM
Image 7:
Bengal fig, banyan tree
Image 8:
Botanic Architecture 3, 1974
© Mark Primack
Image 9:
Bengal fig, banyan tree
Image 10:
Projected development: The plants grow together into a single organism, forming a self-supporting structure
© TUM
Image 11:
Transformation concept for the Baubotanik park “Prato in Caelo”: The access cores of the hospital are to be preserved during demolition
© TUM
Image 12:
Exhibition opening, Trees, Time, Architecture!
© Leonie Wessel