Mensch Maschine Summer School 2026: Oases
The Mensch Maschine 2026 Summer School, curated by architecture studio Something Fantastic, will explore the topic of ‘Oases’ and is open to interdisciplinary practitioners from the arts, ecology, architecture, landscape design and more.
On 6 June 2026, E-WERK will host a public programme of performances, open studios and DJ sets, during which the Mensch Maschine artists, as well as E-WERK's permanent studio artists, will open their studios to show their work in progress. Find out more about the programme here.
Oases confront and complement a world where forests are dwindling, soil is eroding, and desertification is encroaching. In an increasingly poor and homogeneous environment, proliferating through direct or indirect human intervention – from surface sealing to agricultural monocultures to human-made global warming – an oasis is a space of diversity and life.
Oases stand for an alternative way of relating to nature and life on earth in general. They are places for learning and sharing in which people, animals and plants can maintain and develop forms of communal and symbiotic coexistence. They need to exist until there is no more need for them to exist – because we changed our way of being on earth and the world became a garden. They shall be catalysts of this transformation. They are built as places of sparing and will be made obsolete by a practice of sharing. Until then, let’s start creating oases.
- Something Fantastic
Something Fantastic was founded by three architects E. Schütz, J. Schubert and L. Streich based on the conviction that architecture is related to everything and the resulting social, ecological and political responsibility needs a new type of architectural practice.
The work of the “undisciplinary” office ranges from the conception of books and exhibitions to designing furniture, buildings and urban forms that try to do with less while still being fantastic.
After having directed the MAS Urban Design at ETH Zurich for several years, the partners since 2019 together with futurologist Ludwig Engel are heading the Studio for Immediate Spaces at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. 2020/21 Something Fantastic lived and worked at Villa Massimo in Rome, where they started an ongoing collaboration with gardener Erika Mayr.
Mensch Maschine is a partnership programme with the JUNGE AKADEMIE of the Akademie der Künste, E.ON Foundation and Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw.
