2023. Hoax Start-up. Berlin. GER
Collaboration with Alexander Sacharow.
#wunderflat #wunderparking #privaticationofpublicspace #reclaimthestreets
CONTEXT:
Wunder Parking is a fake start-up created in reaction to the arrival on the market of the company Wunderflat. Wunderflat offers medium-term (less than a year) furnished apartments for rent above regulated prices, exploiting the weaknesses of French and German laws. Indeed, French rent controls do not apply to medium-term rentals (1 to 10 months), and German restrictions do not cover furnished accommodation. Bypassing the laws protecting tenants, this company presents itself as the answer to the housing crisis, as it enables its users to easily find an apartment in a city where finding a place to live is an obstacle course. Yes, but with skyrocketing prices. The result: even less affordable housing and intensified gentrification.
Spin-off of Parasite Parking, Wunder Parking is a fictitious start-up that turns public space into a business model. Wunder Parking furnishes and rents out public parking spaces at a high price and aims to draw attention to the logic of start-ups such as Wunderflats.
Thanks to Wunder Parking, any Berliner could book in September 2023 a temporarily privatized parking space: as a co-working space, café and meeting place with friends, as an event venue, for a romantic dinner or for an overnight stay. In September 2023, Wunder Parking was launched in Berlin. Reached out through an advertisement, Berliners have been booking their Wunder on a real website, and used it to have a dinner, drink a coffee or sleep over.
Noting that even legality can be disrupted so easily, Wunder Parking transforms public parking lots into private spaces without authorization. At a time when society is looking for answers to the housing crisis, Wunder Parking perverts the start-up practice of making a profit from the needs of others. Indeed, it presents itself as a solution to the housing crisis, offering Berliners the chance to do everything they could do in an apartment, but on the street. „Tired of queuing for an apartment? Sleep on the street!“ Like Wunderflat, Wunder Parking exploits social distress under a modern veneer of „social impact“, posing as a driving force for change in mobilities.
Further information: wunderparking.com
PRESS:
Tagespiegel : Small bed in the car niche: Berlin artists rent out parking spaces as sleeping places. 09/2023. GER
TAZ : Wunder Parking vs. Wunderflats: Miraculous profiteering. 09/2023. GER
Weddingweiser : Lame parking lot becomes wonder flats. 10/2023. GER
Photos/Videos by Hani Hamza, Ben Olayinka and Wunder Parking Founders.
