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What furniture do you really need? In April 2025, Hannes Wilke, Christian Kirchner, and Matthias Lipeck from the Department of Design at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences explored this question in Zeitz. During their research, they came across the “Krimzkrams” and “Stadtlabor” initiatives, which provided spaces for collaborative exchange. Through conversations with residents of Zeitz, a design brief was developed, which the university team then incorporated into their subsequent semester projects. The student work and insights generated there, in turn, formed an important foundation for further development. It was on this basis that Christian Kirchner and Joris Graba developed the design concepts that ultimately gave rise to the “Zeitzer Zimmer”—named after a city that must phase out coal by 2038. The loss of the historic ZEKIWA factory, which manufactured baby strollers, had already profoundly changed the city in the early 1990s. The loss of jobs was followed by a population decline of around 20 percent.

Today, the former ZEKIWA factory grounds are an industrial wasteland, though parts of it have been restored. For example, there is a “Room of Possibilities,” where the design team from Anhalt University of Applied Sciences presented the “Zeitzer Zimmer” on June 15, 2026: a chair, table, and shelf made of light-colored wood for visitors to view and try out. The response from project partners and the public was positive, and there were requests for additional building instructions. After all, that is the true centerpiece of the “Zeitzer Zimmer”: an open design concept for modular wooden furniture. Anyone with a blueprint, tools, and materials can build their own furniture, expand on the design, and customize it. 

Educated, empowered, equipped, enabled Do-it-yourself (eDIY)—that’s the approach. The basic idea is the opposite of mere consumption: When you build your own furniture, you experience yourself as effective. According to the project description, this results in an experience that goes beyond the individual piece of furniture. It’s about being able to exert influence rather than simply accepting things as they are. “That’s why we want to keep bringing different stakeholders together,” says Matthias Lipeck. The events organized by the project, which is part of the NEB Reallabor ZEKIWA Zeitz, bring together craftsmanship, design, Economics, and civil society. Funded by the European “New European Bauhaus” (NEB) program and the EU’s “Just Transition Fund,” participants exchange knowledge, skills, and resources to develop something new. 

Zeitz is a place where old concepts no longer work. “In that sense, the former ZEKIWA factory grounds are the perfect location for our concept,” Matthias Lipeck continues. With the “real-world lab”—that is, realistic testing environments for new ideas—the goal is to create something different from new manufacturing facilities or industrial workplaces. It emphasizes participation as a key factor in sustainable economic activity. When people build a piece of furniture themselves—in collaboration with universities and skilled tradespeople—it takes on a different value than one that’s simply purchased. The concept also includes a materials database designed to catalog surplus materials in the region and make them available for building new items.

The goal of the project is to create an open furniture catalog that anyone can use—including people in other regions. Currently, three sets of building instructions are available for free download: for a chair, a table, and a shelf. Over the coming months, the project team plans to determine how widely the initiative is being adopted, which trades can be integrated, and what further developments are needed to achieve this. They have until the end of 2027 to do so and have many trips ahead of them: between Dessau and Zeitz and other cities facing similar transformations. 

Where people once worked in industry, a wide variety of stakeholders now come together in Zeitz to test the work and life of tomorrow in real-world labs. This is being done in accordance with the guidelines of the NEB initiative launched by the EU, in which Anhalt University of Applied Sciences is also participating with its ZEKIWA real-world lab: beautiful, sustainable, collaborative. So why isn’t the furniture series also called “New European Bauhaus Room”? “Of course, it would have been fitting,” explains Matthias Lipeck, “but we wanted to create something new and highlight Zeitz’s unique character.”

The Zeitz Room team includes Matthias Lipeck, Dipl.-Ing. (Spacelab Dessau), Christian Kirchner, Hannes Wilke, and Joris Graba. They also developed the construction instructions. The project leader is Prof. Nicolai Neubert. You can find out everything about the Zeitzer Zimmer here: https://zeitzer-zimmer.de/

In this case, the project acronym ZEKIWA stands for “Sustainable, Energy-Efficient, Circular Innovation for Building, Living, and Working.” The transdisciplinary, interinstitutional consortium includes various university groups and partners from the region. At the heart of their collaboration is the sustainable development of the city of Zeitz—which is undergoing structural change—as a model region. These are the work packages being developed under the leadership of Anhalt University of Applied Sciences:

• Revitalization of the ZEKIWA Building 42
• Neighborhood development and placemaking
• Design, Sustainability, and Technology
• Digital participation and material sharing
   

Learn more about the work projects and contact persons on the project page: https://www.hs-anhalt.de/projekte/projekt/neb-zekiwa-martin-wiesner.html

The project is funded from July 1, 2024, through December 31, 2027. Funding is provided by the European Union and the State of Saxony-Anhalt through the New European Bauhaus (JTF) funding program. 

The contact person for the ZEKIWA Zeitz Real-World Laboratory project is Martin Wiesner, visiting professor at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences. His areas of focus include sustainable design:

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