Building Week at the Walter-Gropius-School 2025

As part of a seven-day practical workshop, students from the advanced art course at the Walter-Gropius-School designed a seating landscape for their school’s courtyard. Guided by the design studio undisciplined design / sieblersiebler, they developed further the idea of “iron weaving” – a technique involving the bending and welding of steel – first introduced during Building Week in 2024. Through intensive hands-on work, the students created benches, deckchairs and imaginative steel cacti – all bent, welded and assembled by the young participants themselves. Even the wooden seating surfaces were weatherproofed by hand using a blowtorch.

In addition to creative design, the focus was on learning and applying practical craft techniques: bending steel, welding, cutting with an angle grinder – a week full of technical skills, teamwork, and tangible results that will endure.