Außenansicht des Umweltbildungszentrums im Britzer Garten mit seinen quer verstellten Holzstreben als Umschalung

Public buildings

Environmental Education Center Britzer Garten

A new 300-square-meter environmental education center was built on the grounds of the Freilandlabor Britz in 2016. It was completed in October 2017 and offers young and old visitors opportunities for action, educational programs and exhibitions on environmental and nature topics and is an important place of learning and experience, especially for daycare groups and school classes.

An ideas competition in 2013 provided the designs for the new building. The architect of the implemented building is Hermann Kaufmann ZT GmbH from Austria. The building, constructed in an ambitious, contemporary architecture and from largely renewable raw materials (e.g. silver fir rods for the façade or thermo pine for the floors), appears as a floating pavilion between the old trees. The bird's nest-like structure of diagonally arranged wooden rods stretches like a ribbon around the building and gives a hint of the interior rooms of the environmental education center. This interplay between façade, surroundings, exterior and interior space arouses curiosity and attracts visitors to the Britzer Garten into the building.

A roofed exhibition area equipped with mobile exhibition walls informs interested visitors with changing exhibits about topics of urban nature and its phenomena, but can also be used as a covered outdoor learning space.

The new environmental education center is the starting point for the "nature expeditions" of the Freilandlabor Britz into the adjacent woods, to the pollarded willow pond, to the stream or to the wetland biotope of the Britzer Garten.