SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2025
Private / Public Spheres
JULY 6th – SEP 6th
In today’s hyper-connected world our understanding of public and private spheres undergoes profound transformation. The boundaries between the personal and the shared have blurred and challenge our concepts of intimacy, time, community, or self.
This shift is not just a social phenomenon but a systemic change that reshapes the ways we interact, communicate and build environments for our lives. Design, in this context, proves to be a powerful tool that offers all means to examine, mediate and re-shape the world around.
This year, our workshops use design as a lens to interrogate these living spheres. By exploring the tensions and intersections between the public and private domains, we aim to develop situation- and site-specific responses to this complexity.
‘To change something, build a new model that makes obsolete the existing one’, said Buckminster Fuller, one of the great creative minds of the 20th century. Let’s come together this summer to reimagine and reshape our environments – it’s the time for connection and action.
SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2024
IMAGO: The World We See
JULY 7th – SEP 7th
Our image of the world and what is presented to us as official or scientific has become arguable, not least due to manipulation in digital media. To what extent can we still believe our own eyes, let alone the views of others?
The search for a common reality of our shared environment is necessary for all aspects of society, but it is by no means egalitarian – on the contrary. For this reason, the problem of imagination is a postulate and motto for our workshops this year.
The programme focuses on design as a discipline that observes, examines and condenses relevant perspectives and requirements in order to develop both sensitive and intelligent perspectives for a better future. Let’s work together towards individual but coherent visions!
SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2023
Grow With the Flow
JUNE 25th – AUG 26th
Trees are pillars of human development and powerful symbols of life’s driving force. Boisbuchet puts them at the centre of its work this year.
Trees provide people with shelter, shade and perch, food, building materials and fuel. But we also find ourselves in the shape and in the role of this queen of plants, one of whom may become ancient as a lone pioneer or as part of a collective, and whose contours already speak of growth and ageing.
Trees show us that we have to take life as it comes, that the flow of life may not always appear to us as such, but that we are nevertheless constantly growing with it.
SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2022
Repair, Recharge, Reset
JUNE 23rd – SEP 3rd
What shall we do? The engine is overheated, poorly maintained and then there’s sand in the gearbox… Perhaps the forced deceleration we’re experiencing, with partial standstills, is just in time to take a closer look. We’ve known for a long time about the need for a circular economy, that CO2 emissions must be climate neutral, that power means responsibility and violence only increases the problem. We won’t reinvent the wheel, the house or the chair, but we can repair and improve a lot to make better use of our resources. Let’s use design to fix things and share the ride together.
SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2021
Energies – Synergies
JUNE 27th – AUG 28th
After a year of disconnection and readjustment we are ready to set out for the future. Celebrating Boisbuchet’s 30th anniversary, distinguished thinkers and makers will gather for a summer programme that flags projections for the next steps of our lives. They will connect disciplines and cultures with hands-on experimentation of new designs that shall inspire the coming 30 years. Join and explore the abundance of energies that nature and people create: sun, wind, and water, efficient solutions of plants and animals, hands and minds learning from each other, and the power of cooperation – for living better together.
SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2019
MAKING HISTORY
JUNE 30th – SEPT 7th
Making History – Curriculum for a New Bauhaus
On the occasion of the Bauhaus centenary, our workshops this summer pay tribute to the innovations which that institution spearheaded in the 20th century. We’ll honour its alternative research gearing up for society’s future, its interdisciplinary experimentation, and its brave optimism.
But different than in 1919, it is today, above all, the examples of nature, sciences, and cultures that are studied in order to develop sustainable products, environments, and services. Also at Boisbuchet we have defined these concerns as the principle reason for our work.
And something else has changed: Today’s designers, architects, and companies – as well as us as individuals – are no longer just realizing projects; right away we also deliver their contexts and stories. Re-presentation has become an integral part of ourselves and our actions. And as we can know what we are doing wrong, making history has never been so responsible.
SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2018
MATTERS OF FACT
JULY 1st – SEPT 1st
Fake news, alternative facts, virtual realities… Media that were meant to connect us are taking on a life of their own. They blur borders between the actual world and its image and they answer questions about true or false with the loudest voice or strongest image. Our workshops this year offer a reality-check. They dip your hands into matter, confront ancient knowledge with high-tech, engage you with innovative companies and let you connect to real people – here and now!
SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2017
GROW THE FUTURE NOW
JUNE 25th – SEPT 23rd
In 2017, our practical and multidisciplinary workshops look towards a future that demands responsibility as much as it allows creative minds to experiment, play, and learn. We are inviting designers, architects, and artists to pose the best questions, verify their answers, and ind out how we should deal with ourselves, society, and politics. In short: get your hands dirty and make the future grow.
SUMMER WORKSHOPS 2016
ORIGIN AND TRANSLATION
JUNE 26th – SEPT 3rd
We are living in a globalizing culture that challenges tolerance, understanding and learning. Therefore the 26th edition of our workshops sets the focus on “ORIGIN & TRANSLATION” and puts creativity to the test: What are role models, what is authentic and original, and how are projects influenced by reproduction or imitation, interpretation and a translation of the existing.
For over 30 years, the non-profit organisation CIRECA (Centre International de Recherche et d’Education Culturelle et Agricole), organises Boisbuchet’s interdisciplinary program of hands-on workshops: Participants from all over the world living and working together with noted designers, architects and artists – not to come up with perfect results but to gain insights into creative processes and the challenges involved.
FAQ
Boisbuchet is a kind of utopian community, where knowledge and relationships wonder together among these surprising buildings.
For me, it was an unexpected experience, full of extraordinary people, a peaceful environment and so many warm smiles.
It is a place to make, think, and also to stop thinking.
I felt at home because everyone treated me like family.
PARTNERS 2026
