Very Welcome!
The Hostel is a family business managed under the umbrella of Squat Deluxe Berlin GMBH.
Squat deluxe is managing the Hostel but it is a multi disciplinary company started in 2003 in Rotterdam the Netherlands.
In addition to the hostel, It is a rental company for sound light and video and a technical producer for events, festivals and clubs & A cargo bike sales company
Hostel facility and location
We offer Hostel Studios facilities in the heart of Lichtenberg. Each studio offer independent toilets showers or bathtub and cooking facility, They also have access to the garden. It is possible to rent E-cargo bike, E-bikes or the Garden Sauna during your stay in the studios.
Lichtenberg is a central neighbourhood, very well connected to all other neighbourhoods in Berlin. Direct connection by public transport to Alexanderplatz. It is a calm neighbourhood in the heart of a dynamic city.
History
The hostel is build in typical car garages from the DDR times. The Garages were build in the 60’s during the split of Berlin, they were on the east side. I started working on the project in 2011.
First plan was to build a glas house around the garages , live in a couple of them and create the hostel in the 5 remaining garages. The glas house would have served to grow vegetation inside and to regulate the temperature around the garages. This plan was rejected from the building authorities of Lichtenberg. This lead me to a 3 years negotiations with them. They wanted me to demolish the garages and to build an apartment block.
Exactly what I didn’t want to do. first because this was not what I wanted to do with the plot, 2nd because I didn’t want to produce debris or remains out of an existing structure, 3rd is because these garages have history in them, men used to meet up, tinker their cars, drink a beer, create a loophole from their ordinary life or even live a parallel secret life in the garages.
These kind of garages are being destroyed in order to build lucrative apartment blocks so they are slowly disappearing. Final reason is that I dislike fully planned cities. I wanted to create an oasis. Final outcome was a compromise: I kept the garages, and build my house on the top of 3 of them. The project is a DIY project and took me 3,5 years to accomplish it.