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Spaces to Grow

Being Neighbourly x Carsten Rakutt, Baumhaus & Rakoon Design

Author/ Being Neighbourly
10 February 2025

Baumhaus was the first ‘stop’”, says Carsten Rakutt, Founder of Rakoon Design, “and that was 10 years ago”. Originally, in the shipping industry, Rakutt, a native of Hamburg, Germany and engineer by background, worked “at sea” in various positions for 20 years. “In the beginning, it was exciting to travel the world, but two things were lacking”, says Rakutt, “These things were community and creativity. It dawned on me that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life just moving containers…”

Baumhaus offerings

“Music is our language,” says Carsten Rakutt, who co-founded Baumhaus with his wife, Crisel Consunji. A former Disney princess, Rakutt jokingly refers to them as the Princess and the Pirate due to his many years in the shipping industry. In another link to what he’s now doing, Rakutt himself was a Kindermusik child growing up in Germany, while Consunji who was born and raised in the Philippines is actually a celebrated singer and actress, who has won ‘Best Actress’ at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Baumhaus blends high-quality facilities with internationally acclaimed music programs for children aged 0-4 and functions as a hub for creative child development and community engagement. The music centre also provides teacher training and works with corporates, for example, singing tuition for when a CEO might need to sing in front of his staff.

A brand-new primary school playground, for ESF Glenealy, is the site of Rakoon Design’s latest playground after the company completed one for ESF Kennedy last year. However, their approximately 20 projects have not been confined to just Hong Kong, but include playrooms and playgrounds in Singapore, Mongolia and Thailand — with talks currently underway for a project in New Zealand. “The biggest of our projects has been the VIP space in Lee Gardens 2, which is about 7,000 square feet,” Rakutt shares.

Close attention to detail is of paramount importance, says Rakutt, who adds that designing with child safety in mind means careful consideration of everything, with key points including the height of each of the elements and the correct spacing between slats. Each design undergoes stringent testing after completion and a stuntman is hired to teach children at the schools how to fall safely – if there’s going to be falling going on.

“Business in Hong Kong is very much through connections and word of mouth and once you’re visible, you need to keep up with demand,” says Rakutt.

“We’ve been standing for ten years”, he adds, an accomplishment that he feels is due to the practice across both Baumhaus and Rakoon Design of putting relationships and community first. “We believe that when a child is raised in a community, it leaves a lifelong impression. Like an invisible hand guiding the child, they will have the confidence and courage to make a difference in society, in their own way.”

Top row: Project for Lee Gardens. Bottom row: Project for ESF Kennedy School.

Rakoon Design projects

Rakoon Design projects are meticulously crafted spaces designed to provide sensory-rich, expansive learning environments that aim to turn spaces into worlds of experience. While each ensures secure settings for children to engage in, they are all unique due to spatial differences and the brief they are given. “We use authentic natural materials with strong ‘touch and feel’ qualities that offer children diverse, haptic stimuli. Each playroom is uniquely architectured to stimulate the curiosity, imagination, and creativity of children that help inspire new ideas, games, and friendship. In Hong Kong, Rakoon design projects include their flagship BAUMHAUS Wan Chai outpost, PLAYDOT at Lee Gardens and One Sky. The company has also completed projects in Singapore, Thailand and Mongolia.

While, Rakutt admits that it, initially, wasn’t clear what he wanted to do, his wife, Crisel Consunji, was teaching music in a tiny space, all-too typical of Hong Kong; and one day, like many chivalrous men before him, Rakutt said he was going to build her something, leading to the birth of Baumhaus.

Now in its tenth year, after a circuitous route of multiple Baumhaus outlets, the couple, who now have a two-year old child, have scaled back to just one, in what has been a concerted move to return to what they want to do.

“If I had to list the things that we value as a business, Community would be number one,” says Rakutt, emphatically. “We actively engage and nurture the Baumhaus community through events, workshops, seminars, and meet-ups. We also develop partnerships with businesses and NGOs to facilitate teacher training, events and community education,” he adds.

The family-oriented philosophy and community-centred approach espoused by Baumhaus have been embraced by both local and expatriate families across Hong Kong; and as anyone who has visited the music centre and playroom on Queen’s Road East will know, a distinguishing feature of the space is its unforgettable tree house. It has served as an unwitting advertisement for the music school, and also led to the formation of Rakutt’s second company, Rakoon Design.

“Building treehouses was not an idea I had had for a company,” says Rakutt, who calls himself a “go-with the flow kind of guy”. “But soon, people were asking if I could do a playroom here or a playground there.”