rfws

medienhaus/

2021–2024

in collaboration with Andreas Rueckel, Florian Weber, Marcel Haupt

The medienhaus/ project is an open-development spin-off emerging from the “Notfalldigitalisierung” initiative at the Berlin University of the Arts. In line with the principle of “public money, public code,” the software was conceived as a configurable, institution-agnostic, free and open source project. Its goal is to empower institutions to operate their own digital communication and collaboration infrastructures based on the federated [matrix] protocol. Since this set of requirements is not only relevant to public institutions, it was co-created in collaboration with associations, NGOs, and activists.

table of contents

The medienhaus/ project emerged in the context of "Notfalldigitalisierung" at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin) as an institute-independent infrastructure and development team. Its objective was not to create an isolated, standalone solution, but rather to develop generalizable, open-source tools that could be adopted, adapted, and extended by other institutions—in alignment with the principle of “Public Money, Public Code.”At the core of these developments lies the use of federated technologies based on the Matrix protocol. These technologies enable decentralized, secure, and inter-institutional communication—free from reliance on commercial platforms and without sacrificing network effects. This empowers public educational institutions to build more resilient digital infrastructures that are interoperable and adaptable to local needs.Among the outcomes of this approach is medienhaus/spaces—a modular communication environment that integrates existing open tools such as chat, collaborative whiteboards, and video conferencing into a federated network. The udk/spaces instance represents the local system at UdK Berlin and can be easily deployed and maintained by other institutions using medienhaus/docker.In addition, medienhaus/cms and medienhaus/api were developed as a publication platform, initially conceived for the digitally-extended Rundgang exhibition at UdK. This platform, too, is designed for federation and offers the potential for decentralized, cross-institutional showcases—without relying on centralized services.All developments are openly available under the principles of Open Development at github.com, released as free and open-source software.

medienhaus/spaces

2024

medienhaus/spaces stands for a better form of collaboration for organizations like yours. Here you'll find a work environment that brings together everything you need - shareable with anyone and extensible by everyone.

medienhaus/spaces

Get back what matters to you.

Like everyone, do you use Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon AWS and Slack? That means important documents in scattered services on hermetically sealed platforms on servers on the other side of the world. medienhaus/spaces frees your documents from the lock-in effects as an intermediary between all applications. You know where your data is at all times and decide how and by whom this data is used.

A structure that suits your organization.

Every organization has a unique structure. Everything is coordinated so that it works well together. Why not in digital as well? medienhaus/spaces allocates your organization digitally. Departments, teams and members - all have the same opportunity to shape the digital version of your organization according to their needs.

Shares what you want others to have access to.

Collaboration, whether within or between organizations, used to require time-consuming moderation and management. medienhaus/spaces acts as a link here. Share documents or entire parts of your work environment with other teams, departments and organizations. Through interoperable and federated systems, unlimited networking is possible. This puts cooperation on a free footing.

Publish live, without extra effort.

No more outdated websites. No more unpublished projects. With medienhaus/spaces what you want to show is always visible, suitably prepared and up to date. You choose what to publish, medienhaus/spaces generates a suitable view. This is possible because data and interface are handled separately, but are connected via dynamic links.

Existing open source tools are linked in one place by medienhaus/spaces.

Thanks to the Docker Composition, you can configure a working environment in no time - customized to your organization.

medienhaus/cms

2021

the udk rundgangs-cms is a decentralized-first, room-based content management system (CMS) based on the Matrix protocol. The project was used for Berlin University of the Arts’ digitally enhanced Rundgang in from 2021 onwards.

medienhaus/cms

medienhaus/api

2022

The medienhaus/ caching API fetches tree-structured data from [matrix] and temporarily stores it. This makes the data accessible to non-[matrix] read-only applications through a REST and/or GraphQL interface. Temporarily storing the fetched data allows for revealing relationships between datasets, which is essential for many use cases involving graph-oriented data interactions.

medienhaus/api

The core use case of this caching API is to enable the creation of fast-loading, client-side-rendered front-facing websites without the need for developers and/or users to interact directly with the [matrix] protocol API.The medienhaus/ caching API is using the NestJS framework, favoring JavaScript over TypeScript for now.

medienhaus/ stack

2023

medienhaus/docker provides a modular and containerized runtime environment for the self-hosted deployment of the medienhaus/ tool suite—including components such as medienhaus/spaces, medienhaus/api, and medienhaus/cms, alongside foundational services like Matrix-Synapse, Element, Etherpad, Spacedeck, and LLDAP.

medienhaus/ stack

The composition is designed to enable institutions beyond UdK Berlin to participate in a federated, decentralized network for digital communication and collaboration—without relying on commercial platforms or central infrastructure. It supports transparent configuration, secure defaults, and extensibility through environment-based templating and standardized service orchestration.By following the principle of “Public Money, Public Code”, medienhaus/docker facilitates the adoption of open, interoperable systems within public educational contexts and beyond.