Are you wondering what Uniartcity is?

Essentially, a group of young people have come together with a common decision and vision to create their own space where they can choose their own subjects for the upcoming semester.

The focus is on building self-discipline and properly organizing your time so that you can study, create, build your own project without pressure from an institution, professors, parents, high tuition fees, etc.

Uniartcity as an independent university was started about 3 years ago in Schloss Tempelhof where the Tempelhof community saw and recognized the idea behind the project and gave them part of their land for the students to build their first campus. After the construction of the first “Flow Valley” campus, the students of the upcoming semester spend the summer there together learning new skills, building eco-houses, friendships, connections that show that when people come together, there is no idea that cannot become reality!

In the next 2 years they found two more locations: an old house near Templhof(Flow Forrest) and an old abandoned hunting museum(Flow Hills) in Schönsee, Nature Community. They renovated both places themselves and adapted them to be a home for young students during the winter semesters.

This is where my story connects with them, at the museum in the eco-community “Nature Community” a few months ago…

As a person who loves nature, an ecological lifestyle, and building with wood, this seemed like a great opportunity to visit the place and learn new skills that will be useful to me in the future. I didn’t have second thoughts applying through the ESC program.

Before the new year, I spent 50 days in the village where, together with other international volunteers, we built 5 small rooms for the students of the upcoming semester and renovated the “Wellness” section in the “Nature Community” hotel. The days were filled with work, friendship, laughter, singing, sauna and a little bit of drama (it can’t be done without it, right? :)). Life in a community fills you up and exhausts you at the same time, but the exhaustion is not at all like the one in the city, at least not for me. 50 days flew by in an hour and it was time to return home but only temporarily… I have already decided that I would attend the second project in February 2026.

The day came, I returned and realized how much I enjoy when the mornings are slow and inject life into your soul. The students who are spending the winter semester there had already moved into the Castle (that’s what we call the museum) and were using the rooms that we had built. The feeling is wonderful when you know that you have contributed to something that is a new wave, new movement and a potential change in the educational system in the world.

But for all of this to be possible, we must work together and everyone must have their own role and responsibility during the day, the week and even the month. What does that mean? Every Monday at 9:30 a.m., all of us who live in the castle (about 30 people) gather in the large living room and share responsibilities for cleaning up the entire castle, which is not to be underestimated when it comes to its size.

Everyone volunteers for various chores that need to be done that morning: vacuuming the living room, cleaning the bathroom with the showers, replenishing the reserves of heating pellets, cleaning the kitchen, and everything that would generally be the chores at home, only 10 times larger. But when 30 people work together and beautiful music is in the background, the castle shines again in an hour and a half. Then, responsibilities are assigned for the week to know who is responsible for baking bread, changing the gas cylinder, cleaning the hallway, cleaning the toilets, emptying recycling waste bins, etc. The roles change on a weekly basis.

During the second project, the priority was to equip all the rooms in the castle with wall heating pipes and then cover them with clay. Clay has become a close friend of mine. Although I don’t like working with clay much, working with it is like meditation for me. We used more than 3 tons of clay to cover the pipes in the rooms. The last week before I left, we were building a wall of wooden beams and plywood in one of the large rooms where the goal is to divide the room into a living room and music studio. Working with wood is what truly fulfills me and I will always be grateful for this opportunity that was given to me. I could write another whole text about all the small and large side projects that we completed, but I will leave that for some other time and place.

Aside from building physical things, I really enjoyed the process of building friendships and connections between the project participants there. I was not the only one who decided to return to Uniartcity for the second time, 6 of us volunteers from the first project came back again to the Castle! The moment when we all came together again was almost unreal. I felt so close to them as if I had known them for years and not just met them 3 months ago.

And that right there friends… is the magic of living in community and overcoming obstacles together!

If this story inspires any positive thoughts in you and you would like to experience life in a community, I highly recommend you to spend an ESC project in Schönsee, Nature community, Uniartcity.

Petar Stevanovikj 

Project partners: Uniartcity | Nature Community