Europe’s largest makerspace
Berlin, 21 March 2025 – The future is being shaped in Berlin in Mariendorf, among other places, more precisely on the ringberlin model campus. In Hall 2, a collaborative startup centre is currently being built, Europe’s largest makerspace for founders, startups, SMEs and many other creators. It has now been announced who the operator of the new makerspace will be. The leading national hardware accelerator and renowned hard-tech innovation hub MotionLab.Berlin will be taking on this promising project in the future.
A lot of potential in a lot of space: With 17,000 m², the listed Hall 2, with its impressive combination of existing and new buildings, offers stakeholders from research, science, entrepreneurship, business, culture and politics, among others, sufficient space to launch innovations, enter into collaborations and engage in dialogue with one another. The aim of the new campus is to make future-oriented synergies visible and usable. Users have access to ideal conditions with workshops, a modern machine infrastructure, coworking and office space, maker garages and test areas. Direct access to Berlin’s public transport, e-mobility services and sharing concepts should also enable the community to reach the site as car-free as possible and to use it in an environmentally friendly manner. Hall 2 is currently being modernised and expanded in accordance with its status as a listed building, providing more than 5,000 people with innovative space for thought and action. For this purpose, the State of Berlin, through the Senate Department for Economic Affairs, Energy and Public Enterprises, is providing GRW funds amounting to around 36 million Euro to promote the regional economic structure. The total investment volume amounts to more than 60 million Euro.
The new operator MotionLab.Berlin was announced in the presence of the State Secretary Dr. Severin Fischer, the District Mayor of Tempelhof-Schöneberg Jörn Oltmann and the CEO of Berlin Partner Dr. Stefan Franzke at the venue itself.
Dr. Stefan Franzke, Managing Director of Berlin Partner, expressed his satisfaction: “It is great to see how ringberlin is increasingly gaining appeal. The planned makerspace will soon be one of the largest startup centres in Europe. In the future, decisive impulses and innovations will emanate from here that will further strengthen Berlin as an international industrial centre. Berlin Partner has supported the projects of ringberlin and MotionLab from the very beginning. We are therefore all the more pleased about the joint project and look forward to further cooperation for the Berlin location.”
As a leading ecosystem, MotionLab.Berlin drives deep tech innovation and major technological developments. The Innovation Hub offers companies access to infrastructure and a suitable environment to implement projects and develop professionally. The aim of Co-founder and Managing Partner Fridtjof Gustavs is to create an open and CO2-neutral campus with the new makerspace, where hard-tech and deep-tech innovations are brought from the launch pad to the road to success.
ringberlin is part of the Masterplan Industrial City Berlin (MPI). The MPI was updated by the Berlin Senate in August 2022 for the period 2022 to 2026 and aims to promote the development of industrial production in Berlin through innovation, cooperation and networking as well as the creation of suitable framework conditions. As a flagship project of the MPI, ringberlin is set to become a representative example of circular economy with a supra-regional impact. A fitting MPI Deep Dive entitled “Circular Value Creation in the Construction Industry,” held at ringberlin in July 2024, brought together key stakeholders and offered participants the opportunity to combine knowledge transfer and exchange.
The organisation in the form of conception, coordination and communication was supported by the Coordination Office for Circular Economy, Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection in Companies (KEK) and with the involvement of Berlin Partner.
© ringberlin / HGEsch