| BLUR-GERBEGEHREN | Berlin, Germany | Unit 21 | 2025 |
| This project explores how the concept of blur can operate as an architectural tool to mediate between boundaries—public and private, protest and institution. Located on Stallschreiberstrasse, a historically charged site along the former Berlin Wall in Kreuzberg, it reimagines the Berlin courtyard as a civic landscape. Using Google Street View panoramas and depth data, a point cloud is generated to form translucent pixel columns that dissolve spatial edges. The project responds to the lingering tension between Google and Kreuzberg’s activist legacy, using the very platform that was contested as a design tool. In doing so, it proposes a middle ground between digital surveillance and spatial agency. By addressing Germany’s cultural sensitivity to visibility and data privacy, the architecture blurs boundaries while fostering protest, petition, and participation—reclaiming space for civic presence within Berlin’s evolving urban fabric. |
The Blurring Design Experience blur not just visually, but through movement, material, and atmosphere. This immersive walk-through shows how architectural blurring fosters participation, ambiguity, and civic engagement.N dataset. |
The Blurring History Graffiti, protest, and Google Street View absences expose Berlin’s blurred spatial politics. At the Kreuzberg–Wall intersection, expression, memory, and resistance challenge and reshape urban legibility. |
The Blurring Methodology Using unfolded panoramas, a toolkit of blurring strategies—testing resolutions, image resources, and parameters was developed to deliberately unresolve urban clarity and explore ambiguity. |
The Blurring Point Cloud Site-specific pixel data from Google Street View becomes the raw material for design. Point clouds blur boundaries, guiding architectural form through spatial layering, movement, and public visibility. |
The Blurring Petition Hall and Landscape Blur dissolves architecture into landscape. Semi-transparent columns and layered sequences redefine civic space, supporting protest, play, and petition on a politically charged, once-divided site. |