Breathe Earth

CLIMATE CULTURE PAVILION

© Simon Oberhofer

From climate change to climate culture

The advancing climate change calls for new ways of life and everyday structures as well as new strategies for dealing with our environment and its resources.

Climate culture means a change towards a climate-positive society, which places the transformation at the center of its social, cultural, and economic activities. There is no going back, only a future together. We are faced with a comprehensive social design task.

The CLIMATE CULTURE PAVILION provides a stage for this shared change. The 150 m2 forest oasis creates a new public space and also shows a prototype for the natural cooling of urban spaces in hot summers. With more than 700 plants, from mosses, perennials, and grasses to large trees, the forest in the middle of the city is a multi-sensory experience space, that provides cooling on hot summer days and contributes to improving the local air quality. The pavilion also stands for the prototypical transformation of sealed areas into climate-active urban landscapes.

The forest pavilion was presented for the first time in 2021 as part of the Graz Year of Culture 2020 and acted as an agora for a diverse discourse on climate issues. A dense climate-culture program was generated out of an Open Call. Guided tours, lectures, and discussions on the subject of forest, climate, city, and change, crowd foresting campaigns, a climate culture kitchen, a climate library, and various plays and performances made the first steps towards a local climate culture.

Breathe Earth Collective

The Breathe Earth Collective sees itself as an interdisciplinary do-and-think tank on the subject of air and climate, which works on the development and implementation of holistic solutions, such as the creation of urban ecosystems. The transdisciplinary team works on the border between architecture, art and urbanism in non-hierarchical networks in order to develop new solutions for complex challenges.

The work of the Breathe Earth Collective focuses on air and climate as resources, as well as experimenting and designing ecosystems that integrate plants and architecture, as well as projects that have an impact on society as a whole.

In addition to being part of the Breathe Earth Collective, all team members also work indivi­dually on projects in different areas and scales. The different approaches and talents of each individual are the basis for the innovative work of the group.

Founders: Karlheinz Boiger (Hohensinn Architektur ZT) Lisa Maria Enzenhofer (Green4Cities GmbH) Andreas Goritschnig (Studio Andreas Goritschnig) Markus Jeschaunig (Agency in Biosphere) Bernhard König (Green4Cities GmbH)