Wysing Arts Centre invited Berlin based artists Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser to create an ‘amphitheatre’ on Wysing’s rural site, working with a team of volunteers and using only discarded, found and recycled materials.

Click on the image to see the building in progress.

Köbberling and Kaltwasser's unique approach to creating buildings for communal use – the materials they use and work with are always unwanted and liberated by the artists to be transformed into something not only beautiful but functional - created a very particular environment of sharing and generosity around Amphis. Over a two month period many people came to Wysing to drop-off their unwanted materials. Many also helped to build the structure and many more returned to take part in a series of discussions and film screenings around the project.

Amphis crosses the disciplines of art and architecture and much of the thinking behind the project comes from their shared interest in changes within architecture. What Kobberling and Kaltwasser set out to do with Amphis was create a structure that embraced the ideas of many people in one big patchwork ‘house’ filled with practical, structural and sculptural elements. Every element of Amphis was built using materials donated to the project and built by a community of 40 volunteers without whom the project - conceptually as well as practically - would not have been possible.

Amphis volunteers were:, Danny Boyle, Claire Ward, Robin Turner, CJ Mahony, Bryony Graham, Debbie Lauder, Linda Thomas, Phoebe O'Donnell, Rachel Barker, Gideon Pain, Heath Bunting, Ele Holloway, Elizabeth Murton, Christina Green, Ben Short, Stephen Draycott, Mark Mau, Jane & David Crawford White, Charlotte & Martin Parker Hall, Julian Brown and family. Kim Stephens, Steve & Paul Carpenter, Judy Cowell, Andrew Tanser, William Cruikshank, Charlotte Schneider, Clara Grosse (apologies if we have forgotten anyone!)

And with many thanks to the following for donation of materials: Lucas Morley, Donarbon, Hill Partnerships, Redrow Homes, St Neots, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, O'Sullivan Shopfitting Ltd, Cambridge, Labute Group Ltd, Cambridge, SDC Builders Ltd, 5th Studio Architects, KA Anderton Haulage, Bourn, Mess Hall Chicago. And to Stephen Robinson for the loan of his van.