ABSTRACT
In 2011, the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development declared the neighbourhood of Nordliche Luisenstadt an area of urban renewal. Since then, a local newspaper periodically covered the urban planning measures in this part of the city district of Mitte, as well as the people who live there. In April 2015, the newspaper dedicated a short article to Frank’s home, calling the squatted state-owned property a ‘small tent village’. The intentions of Berlin’s urban planning administration do not only affect a discussion between neighbours, who come together in a boathouse. Although the official plans show quite plainly the temporary and fragile status of the squatted property, the complexity and length of planning as an institutionalized process of decision-making also offers them opportunities to a creative appropriation. Notions of home often include various dimensions of space, sociality and time.
