A New Start? With Véronique Faucheur

The first week was mostly spent getting to know the site, to prepare the building area and to organize the building process.

Before doing any plan, the range of materials and tools had to be set. Some materials were already there, such as the IBA scaffolding and the bricks and wood panels from the IGS. Others had to be found, like foundation stones for the scaffolding structure and all kinds of other building materials. While one group was driving around in Wilhelmsburg looking for unused materials, another group was cleaning and prepare the building site. A landscaping team guided by Véronique Faucheur was set to take care of the location around the UdN. At first, the new building area had to be defined by cleaning the site from all the wild plants growing in the front yard as well as the backyard.

One team was in charge of the harvesting phase. Construction sites from the International Building Exhibition (IBA) and International Garden Show (IGS) and other construction sites in Williamsburg and in the neighborhood were our first source. To organize the quest, a map of the harvesting places and an Abaco of the materials needed for the Wintergarden were drawn. The accesses and pathways have been designed using the leftover branches to create borders of the land. This is a technique from the forest gardener to make the walker understand where to go and not to go.

Harvesting Maps

Harvesting building materials from the surrounding neighbourhood put us in contact with local actors and transformed the hotel into point of local re- and up-cycling.