About Transformbau
Transformbau is Erik Erdmann's carpentry and restoration workshop in Berlin-Treptow.
Carpentry and restoration
The workshop does two things that usually sit apart. One is fitted carpentry: wardrobes, storage, kitchens, workspaces, made to the measurements of a particular room. The other is restoration: historic windows and doors repaired rather than replaced, and reproductions built to match a set where one piece is missing.
The combination matters in Berlin, where most flats are older than the furniture that has to go into them. A room in an Altbau has walls that lean, floors that fall away and openings that are no longer square. Knowing how those buildings were put together is the difference between a piece that fits and one that has a gap down one side.
Qualifications
Dipl.-Restaurator (FH)
Restoration work grounded in a completed degree in conservation. Self-employed since 2006.
Registered Craft Business
Listed on the Handwerksrolle of the Berlin Chamber of Crafts since 2013.
Heritage Protection
Restoration of wooden objects, furniture and building components, grounded in a dual, practice-based conservation degree.
Experience
Erik Erdmann – Dipl.-Restaurator (FH) & Carpenter
Trained carpenter (journeyman's certificate 1994, Cologne), Diplom-Restaurator (University of Applied Sciences Cologne, 2006), registered in the Handwerksrolle of the Berlin Chamber of Crafts since 2013. Consultation available in German, English, French, Spanish, and Dutch.
Consultation in five languages
Materials, energy and repair
The timber comes from sustainably managed forests, and from regional sources where they are available. The workshop's electricity is 100% renewable, supplied by the cooperative Green Planet Energy. Heating comes from the offcuts the work produces anyway. And restoring a piece of furniture or a building element instead of replacing it adds decades to its life and saves the material outright. Where a historic door or window can be repaired, repairing it is usually both the cheaper and the longer-lasting option.
“There's no such thing as 'can't be done'.”
– Erik Erdmann