The WaterSchool, a speculative school, is designed and organised around water as an essential material and subject, as well as a social, economic, and political phenomenon. One of its aims is to raise awareness of our massive water footprint and how we can reduce it. The WaterSchool also advocates for rethinking the social, economic, and infrastructural model of our society, proposing that everything necessary for its functioning can be locally produced through small-scale (industrial) cooperation.

This holistic vision applies to living, learning, and working, emphasising the sustainable use of energy, water, and resources, and promoting equitable interaction between all organisms, communities, and their environments. This creates new speculative production landscapes and alternative forms of architecture and urban/rural development for which the understanding of seasonality is essential.

By fusing the works of artists, architects, and designers within this speculative framework, the WaterSchool hints toward a future where art, architecture, and design are more integrated into society, education, and life in general. 

In addition to collecting and disseminating knowledge, the WaterSchool's  “learning by doing” approach, also serves as a testing ground and catalyst for the sustainable (re)development of a neighbourhood or a community. On a smaller scale, the WaterSchool presents fragments and works within settings connected to education and the classroom. 

The WaterSchool imagines Schloss Hubertusburg as a place of learning, forming connections with the productive landscapes around it – in the fields of agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, or the domestic economy. Thus, the speculative future of Hubertusburg and its surroundings is deconstructed into four seasons, each addressing the sustainable use of specific resources. International examples of applied art, fashion, architecture, and design are juxtaposed with historical and contemporary SKD exhibits from the Museum of Decorative Arts, the Porcelain Collection, the Mathematical-Physical Salon, the Art Fund, the Hoffmann Collection Donation, and other collections.

The framework proposed by the WaterSchool is brought to life in this exhibition accompanied by the DESIGN CAMPUS Summer School and through the exhibits of artists, designers, and local partners, whose work encourages interaction among all organisms, communities, and their environment.

A project of the Kunstgewerbemuseum / DESIGN CAMPUS, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in collaboration with Studio Makkink & Bey, Rotterdam (NL), and the municipality of Wermsdorf.