Tourist Guidance System for Neustadt in Saxony

Tourist Guidance System for Neustadt in Saxony

Holistic, individual orientation system in combination with a pedestrian guidance system and a parking guidance system

Consisting of individual elements:

  • Arrow signposts
  • Orientation boards (city and district maps)
  • Announcements (showcases / display cases)
  • Pin boards
  • Hiking boards / hiking maps
  • Welcome boards / town entrances
  • Parking guidance system / parking signs and arrow signposts

Planning services:

  • Phase zero / goal identification
  • Concept development (urban orientation concept)
  • Goals and route development based on target spiders
  • Application for funding / project management funding documents
  • Architectural concept (guiding system elements, design, dimensioning, materiality)
  • Cartography: city maps + panels
  • Signalling (signs, pictograms, contrast, font sizes)
  • Graphic design (corporate design, application and adaptation)
  • Text editing / translation (Czech / English)
  • Implementation / realization (project mangaement, construction supervision)

Client:

Municipality of Neustadt in Saxony

Period of development: 2019-2022

Middle Building of Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Nordhausen

Middle Building of Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Nordhausen

Redesign of the didactic development of the tunnel complex

Competition entry, 3rd place

Our concept “Points and Lines” consists of two elements: Points of information and lines of paths in between. This concept includes the didactic idea that the light line guides the visitors and the information pillars (points) mark the destinations.
The information pillars or information light sculptures, convey the story and give the guided tours gathering points where the visitors get visual information and explanations together by the guide.
The light lines are guiding elements that lead to these information points and at the same time illuminate the space.
Both the information modules and the lighting are clearly different in their design from the original environment and thus convey a contrast to the original historic gallery. Since the exhibition elements are placed away from the walls and ceiling, they can be displayed while showing the surrounding environment.

We are pleased to have won third place in this competition with numerous renowned participants.

You can find our concept in detail here.

Columbia Concentration Camp Memorial

Columbia Concentration Camp Memorial

Artistic-architectural concept for marking and visualizing the historical site

The Columbia concentration camp was one of the first concentration camps at the time of the National Socialists and was located at the northern edge of the Berlin Tempelhof airport site, with whose construction it was demolished.

With the aim of making the building and this part of German history perceptible again in the public space, the “Topography of Terror” Foundation organized a design competition to which Ruairí O’Brien was invited to submit a proposal.

Our concept, which is in line with the preservation order and barrier-free, is purposefully kept simple. A band of Corten steel is used to mark the footprint and volume of the disappeared building in parts on the original site.

The entire area can thus be experienced in a multi-layered way. Through the prominent bridge and the large gravel surfaces, the area can be perceived on different levels. As the viewer moves, his perspective changes, creating new spaces for thought. At the same time, the footbridge is a signal with a long-distance effect that provides a distinctive reference to the memorial site and also offers the possibility of accessing the entire site.

Sponsor: Topography of Terror Foundation

Project partner: Slapa und die Raumplaner

Euthanasia Information and Memorial Site, Berlin

Euthanasia Information and Memorial Site, Berlin Tiergartenstrasse

Competition entry for the design competition Memorial and Information Site for the Victims of the National Socialist “Euthanasia” Murders at the site of the planning headquarters, Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin.

Based on the artistic core idea of creating a dialogue between the spatial expression for the commemoration of the victims, the sculptural “pool of tears” and the site of the perpetrators with the ground plan of the building Tiergartenstrasse 4, both a mental and emotional approach to the topic of “euthanasia” murders becomes possible.

Awarded by: City of Berlin, 2012

Beirut Memorial

Beirut Memorial “Pool of Remembrance”

Memorial for the victims of the gas explosion in 2020

International call to develop an architectural idea for a memorial in Beirut to mark the site of the tragic explosion in 2020.

“The need of people to face death, tragedies and losses has produced great art, music, poetry and architecture. Burial chambers, cemeteries, remembrance gardens and memorials reveal to us countless human stories. They reflect us, our time and our culture.
As part of the healing process, we must close the wounds and tend to the scars, to leave a mark for new beginnings. It’s very challenging to create a place where people can feel a transition, an access to spirituality or just to their own inner selves, a place where they can find peace, whether it’s through hope or acceptance.” Ruairí O’Brien, 2020

Design guide Bahnhofstrasse Berlin-Lichtenrade

Design Primer Bahnhofstrasse Berlin-Lichtenrade

Design Guidelines for the Active Centre, the Bahnhofstrasse Shopping Street

The design guideline is intended to contribute to an increase in the quality of stay and to the valorisation of the special features, e.g. the urban qualities in the active centre area. The Design Primer can serve as an advisory tool, which is aimed in particular at property owners and tradespeople, in order to contribute to improving the design quality of the properties and consequently of the entire AZ area.

With the design primer, proposals for measures for a coordinated design of the façades were developed, which should serve the owners as a guideline for action in the redesign of their façades. For Bahnhofstraße and especially the ground floor zones, the retail location, possible ways were shown, for example, how façades with their structuring/design elements can fit into the built environment. The design primer uses exemplary illustrations to make the design aspects comprehensible and offers advice for conversions or an energetic refurbishment of the buildings.

Essential components:

  • Analysis of the situation on site: Brief description of the building history of the street and creation of a façade typology with examples of suitable façade designs and those in need of repair
  • Derivation of design recommendations for façades, especially the ground floor (structure, advertising, structuring elements, colouring)
  • Recommendations for the energetic renovation of façades and for implementation
  • Preparation of the design primer as a brochure.

Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse-Five, Messe Dresden

Memorial wall and information light sculpture

The artistically designed information light sculpture / memorial wall “Slaughterhouse Five” is visited annually by tourists from all over the world.
In the basement of the former slaughterhouse, the American author Kurt Vonnegut – like his protagonist Billy Pilgrim – survived the Allied forces bombing of Dresden on February 13, 1945 as a prisoner of war. The multimedia literary sculpture allows the viewer to experience the metamorphosis of the city of Dresden.
Through the artful superimposition of drawings, paintings, photographs, and city map excerpts, embedded in a complex grid of wood and Plexiglas, various temporal levels of the city’s history and at the same time the collage-like nature of the novel become visible. Lit from behind, the structure appears sculptural incorporating light and shadow as part of a larger picture.

The Erich Kaestner House of Literature, Conversion of Museum Rooms

The Erich Kaestner House for Literature, Dresden

Conversion of the museum room

The structural changes made it possible to maintain the distance regulations for visitors to Dresden’s popular literature museum required during the Corona pandemic, so that museum operations could be safeguarded in times of pandemic.

The previously highly structured premises of the Erich Kaestner Museum, consisting of a checkroom, hallway and exhibition room, were converted into a spacious museum room using our opening room concept. Entrance and exit of the museum were separated from each other in the new concept.

In addition, the museum rooms were redesigned according to Ruairí O’Brien’s color concept.

Services:

  • Structural engineering (overall planning, incl. statics)
  • individual color concept
  • Redesign of the museum rooms

Planning / execution 2020 / 2021

Color and Light Concept Villa Regerstrasse

Color and Lighting Concept Villa Regerstrasse

Psychotherapy Institute for Children and Adolescents

German Society for Behavior Therapy in Saxony, Germany. Institute for Children and Adolescents in Dresden (2021-2022)

The institute’s new location is a newly renovated, landmarked villa in Dresden-Blasewitz, Germany.

Light, color, and material choices play an important role in creating the right atmosphere for all age groups and the various scenarios of discussions, presentations, and meetings that take place at the institute. As those responsible for the interior design, it was of utmost importance for us to balance the heaviness of the old, charming building with bright, friendly, appealing and even thought-provoking interiors. The choice and use of different colors, lighting fixtures, mirrors, materials and decorative elements tell stories that give the reception, offices and therapy rooms their own identity. The impressive staircase is celebrated as a special space that connects the floors. The dark basement needed special attention so that it could be used for seminars and educational purposes. At the Psychotherapeutic Institute in Dresden, child and adolescent psychotherapists and psychological psychotherapists are trained with a strong practical orientation. In addition, outpatient psychotherapeutic treatments are offered in the institute’s outpatient clinic.

Requirements for the current use are as follows:

  • Work office / administration
  • Treatment of patients / therapy rooms
  • Training / seminar rooms
  • Flexible uses – adaptation / change between seminar and group therapy uses

Photos: Peter Fischer

micromuseum Architecture, Dresden

micromuseum Architecture, Dresden

Exhibition celebrating the German Architects’ Day in the German Hygiene Museum Dresden

On the German Architects’ Day 2011 in Dresden, the Saxony Chamber of Architects presented the exhibition installation “micromuseum architecture” by Ruairí O’Brien as part of the supporting program designed by the AKS for the DAT 2011 and as an element of the AKS’ multifaceted commitment on the occasion of its foundation 20 years ago.
The object consists of basic modules, shelves and connecting elements that can be variably combined with each other. With a minimal number of these modular components, the exhibition installation can be flexibly set up in 4 different scenarios and equipped with different information materials to look at and touch as required. The exhibition installation embodies ubiquitous basic principles in architecture: the dialogue between the horizontal and the vertical, between inside and outside, between spatial boundaries and empty space, between surface and body.

Client: Saxony Chamber of Architects, 2011

Execution: German Workshops Hellerau