Solarpunk Studio: Future Building at re:publica

For three days, our table in the GIG-Makerspace at re:publica was filled with visions. 150 models made of wax, bamboo, and Stonepaper were created, of which you can see the highlights here.

Our Solarpunk Studio worked beyond expectations: visitors built with Beenius or recycled materials. We digitized the models, added context, and seconds later the idea appeared as a vibrant Solarpunk scene on the wall.

The goal was not a distant utopia, but feasible, regenerative architecture from the here and now. The core moment was the transformation: one's own handicraft became a credible world within 60 seconds.

The Principle

Whoever came to the table built. With Beenius, with Infinity Stonepaper, with bottle caps, straws, bamboo sticks. Some with a plan, many without. We photographed the model, sent it to the app, a few words about the idea, a place, a story. Seconds later, the model appeared on the wall: the same structure, now embedded in a Solarpunk scene, with people, with light, with atmosphere.

Deliberately not a distant future. No glossy utopia from the year 2080. But architecture, landscape, community that can be developed from the here and now: regenerative, feasible, credible. Layered planting instead of lawns. Bamboo instead of steel, where possible. Diverse communities, warm light, real materials.

Why this is different from other AI

In most AI image worlds, everything starts with a prompt. The human types a sentence, the machine generates. What comes out is essentially the average of everything the model has ever seen. Pretty, often impressive, but essentially detached from the human who wrote the prompt.

In the Solarpunk Studio, the order is reversed. First analog, first material, first one's own idea in a form that someone pressed with their fingers. Only then AI. It translates, but it doesn't provide the idea. The idea remains human.

This is not just an aesthetic question, but a substantial one. If creativity starts with AI, the collective creative level sinks to what the machine can do. If we reverse the order and use AI as an amplifier for human ideas, the opposite happens. Exactly this difference was palpable at re:publica, in every single moment when someone stood before their vision on the wall.

What surprised us

The quality of construction increased as soon as people knew that their model would be part of a Solarpunk world. What should it be? What could I invent? What's missing? The framework raised the bar without anyone having to dictate anything.

Especially people from urban planning, future workshops, and participatory processes stayed at the table. An urban planner said that for years she had struggled in her participation formats with people not daring to do anything. Here, everyone dares, because the material is forgiving and because something beautiful comes out in the end that is taken seriously. Wax excludes no one. Children, adults, people who never considered themselves creative, everyone can participate.

The designs and inventions ranged from funny bamboo pyramids flying through space to Ecobility, a futuristic mobility concept with a new bus shape, modular elements, public meeting spaces, and plants on board.

Beenius and Infinity Stonepaper are tools for shaping the future. They make design democratic. They lower the threshold so much that everyone can participate, and at the same time they raise the bar because what is created at the table is taken seriously.

Precisely this combination, low-threshold yet demanding, is what participation formats rarely achieve otherwise.

Potentials for other contexts

The first prototype was deliberately designed openly. But the system unfolds its full effect through contextual adaptation. We see the following areas of application, among others:

• Urban Development and Neighborhood Work: Residents directly design squares or streets with wax. Instead of just sticky notes on maps, they immediately experience a realistic visualization of their ideas.
• Schools and Educational Institutions: Students design schoolyards or learning spaces. The combination of handcraft and AI architecture creates an identification with the learning environment that traditional committees cannot achieve. Here, our PLAYtoGROW method and permaculture principles intertwine.
• Companies and Organizations: Teams model regenerative transformations of their campus haptically instead of via PowerPoint. Anyone who visualizes their own premises as an edible ecosystem develops a new perspective on feasibility.
• Rural Communities: For villages undergoing structural change, the studio offers barrier-free access to participation processes that culturally and linguistically reach where traditional formats often fail.

We are part of the Global Innovation Gathering (GIG)

The Global Innovation Gathering (GIG) is a diverse, global network of innovation hubs, makerspaces, and grassroots innovators from over 55 countries, with a focus on the Global South. GIG supports projects that enable regenerative ways of life directly in communities through open technologies and community-based processes, such as the Make-A-Thek for transforming libraries into circular makerspaces, open-source soil measurement devices, or the development of local open-hardware solutions from countries of the global majority.

The network is worth supporting because it creates low-threshold, often open-source tools and knowledge that provide concrete, future-oriented solutions that are often only discussed in Europe years later. Through global collaboration and knowledge exchange, it enables a more just and sustainable future.