Transformational

Woodwork Academy

Name: Working with Wood
Price: 150 EUR

Treptow · Berlin

Curator’s Verdict

“After a day on the table saw and bandsaw the fear is gone — and your own piece of furniture designed, not kit-built. Machine training as liberation, not gatekeeping.”

Most beginner courses walk every participant toward the same object. At the Woodwork Academy in Treptow, beginners design their own piece — a stool, a laptop stand, a meditation bench — and on the way there learn what usually counts as untouchable: setting up and safely running the table saw, bandsaw, mitre saw and drill press.

Behind the programme is Lluis Mateu, a fabricator with a portfolio that runs from timber framing through solid oak staircases to custom music cabinetry — documented on the academy blog. Participants describe in reviews how he makes »scary« steps approachable; exactly that safety culture is what a visit has to confirm.

The infrastructure after the course is unusual: open workshop from €36, an alumni membership, and course knowledge shared through a common reference collection. Start here and you get a place to continue — not just a certificate.

Workshops

Working with Wood

Course · 1 session · 8 hrs total · €150 · Materials included · For beginners

Who teaches here

Lluis Mateu

TODO(verify) · Master Fabricator — Fachwerk, massive Eichentreppen, Musikschränke auf Maß, Hofanbauten (Portfolio im Academy-Blog dokumentiert), Eigene Fabrikationspraxis
TODO(verify) · Kursleitung »Working with Wood« — Maschinen- und Entwurfsunterricht für Anfängerinnen und Anfänger, Woodwork Academy, Berlin-Treptow

Machines are not an initiation rite, they are tools: once you can set them up safely, you get to design what you want — which is why nobody here builds the cookie-cutter project.

Inside the studio