About Baumhaus

What is Baumhaus?

Baumhaus is a flexible urban space that is used by a broad and growing interdisciplinary community dedicated to making the world a more sustainable place. Our activities, space and work embody, inspire, catalyze and upscale societal transformation towards a regenerative sustainable future.

Baumhaus exists as a platform and hub for meaningful engagement to develop, support and implement sustainable solutions. The space is manifested as an organically styled indoor tree house; a direct metaphor for radical collaboration across a wide range of stakeholders. We utilize the culturally neutral aesthetics of nature expressed through the use of tangent arcs organically rhythmic lines.

The space and functional elements within it are modular & flexible enough to support multi-functional usages including design development processes, prototyping & production, distribution, community engagement, workshops, seminars, public and private events etc.

The vast majority of the space and its installations are made from several varieties of wood with natural clay & ceramic mosaic detailing. More than half of the materials are up-cycled or rescued; even production scrap is reused in aesthetic installations. Many modular building techniques were developed to facilitate the process of building, using, maintaining & upgrading the space on a generational time scale. High efficiency heating, ecological insulation, natural cooling techniques and dimmable LED lighting help keep the space’s CO² footprint to a minimum. Our CSA/SoLaWi groups, vertical garden and worm compost system help support our internal circular economy.

Until now, more than 1000 people have joined our broad and growing network of interdisciplinary actors for change to help create the space. Detailing work continues, let us know if you would like to help! You can witness what got built and who built every element of Baumhaus via our documentation on our various social media channels since 2011.

We support our local community and clients with regular networking events and practical experiences as well as a wide range of sustainable design services ranging from the design of material goods and installations to the development and implementation of functional systems.

Baumhaus´ heart

We’re all brought together by the common driving question:
“What can I do to make the world a better place?”

C.Scott Bolden

Founder

C. Scott Bolden is a Designer, Artist and Engineer who came to Berlin from Brooklyn, New York. He worked at Smart Design designing and engineering OXO Good grips housewares, other products and the interior design for NYC’s Internet Business Center. He served as the chairman of the Environmental Responsibility Section of the IDSA (Industrial Designer’s Society of America) and guest lectured at New York University, Parsons School of Design and New York School of Interior Design. He was involved in early Life Cycle Analysis research and led the team to develop the first functional AI application for Ford Motor Co.

He is a founder of the art and design collective, Skizum Studios where he designed and built several spaces for culture, art and community-building events in New York & Berlin. His current focus is design and consulting from a ‘broad spectrum’ of perspectives regarding sustainability considering the personal, ecological, aesthetic, cultural, economic and social realms (peaces).

Video interview with Berlin im Wandel – Scott explains the Baumhaus / Video about Scott and other supporters

Karen Wohlert

Co-Founder

Karen Wohlert is in Berlin since 2004. Besides the big questions of saving the world, society and philosophy – she studied political sciences and completed an internship in the European Parliament – Karen is involved in topics as self-organization, the social movements and the art of living as an actor of change. Karen grew up with the anti-nuclear-movement in Wendland. There, she started an environmental youth group in Lüneburg, played music, founded a students café at the University of Potsdam and lived in a house project in Berlin and worked in the Thinkfarm. She likes to spend some time thinking and writing in the woods of Brandenburg.

Karen is was the driving force behind Baumhaus work with sustainable food projects and guiding many of our non-profit activities. She will be transitioning away from Baumhaus in 2026 to pursue her next great adventure. Thanks for all the great work and dedication, Baumhaus would not have existed without it!

Video about Karen & other supporters

Having a space like Baumhaus has been a dream of mine since my mid 20’s when I was finishing my engineering and industrial design studies at the University of Michigan. I wanted to use my newfound technical and creative skills to help make the world a better place and empower others to do the same.

Even though I had established a career path where I could spread the good word about sustainability and design, I realized that it was not enough to have the kind of deep transformational impact I really wanted to have. I was still involved in the business of making more plastic products, contributing to planned obsolescence and feeding the general problem of material consumption.

I eventually founded my own independent engineering, design and creative production studio headquartered on the downtown Brooklyn waterfront. I expanded my engagements to include residential interiors, art, music, event production, systems design, culture and community building.

My music, art and culture projects provided me with the opportunity to tour Europe where I discovered the magic of Berlin. For 8 years I was bi-continental staying active in both New York and Berlin until 2010 when I relocated to the Wedding district of Berlin. In 2011 I discovered a potential space near to home and developed the basic Baumhaus concept. By 2012 I convinced Karen to help develop the project with me and make the dream a reality.

The experience of creating and using the Baumhaus alongside more than 1000 volunteers and partners has renewed my faith in the human spirit to achieve the seemingly impossible. Transformation towards sustainability is an epic and existential challenge that requires epic ideas and actions.

Baumhaus for me is an epic answer to an epic call in the form of a platform and resource that is designed to help inspire and empower people to address the many issues of our time. My constant challenge is to help transform fear and complacency into adventurous courage and action. My methodologies are based on broadly resonant frameworks that help people develop a clearer and deeper understanding of their role(s) and opportunities in our real-life multigenerational epic adventure. I also think its important to help people develop and implement solutions and have the opportunity to experience the results of their efforts in the short and long term.

Over the years my appreciation and love for synergistic creativity and emergent processes has continued to evolve. I feel good that I am spending my time on the planet in valuable ways and I look forward to helping others do the same…