baden-württemberg ministries of social affairs and transport
in stuttgart’s dorotheen quartier
stuttgart 2017

STOP! GO! LAUGH! 

the ROUTE leads along dark corridors over dull grey carpets. to brighten it up, large-format – indeed positively outsized – brightly-coloured signs with either a purely decorative or a wayfinding function are displayed on the walls. these tension fabric lightboxes are printed with texts, with the decorative signs PLAYFULLY featuring a single german word – you know how long those can be! – in upper-case letters. the words were chosen by the philosopher hannes böhringer, some relating more to social affairs, others more to transport. they appear, for example, in a staff kitchen where co-workers can share a LAUGH at human FRAILTY in NOISY encounters that might prove a PAIN for colleagues nearby, until a FRIENDLY understanding is reached. it’s a concept that communicates instantly and intuitively: ATTENTIVE co-workers quickly grasp the CONNECTION, taking a CHANGE OF DIRECTION – yes, that’s just one word in german – whenever necessary. FRESH ministers and civil servants may come and go, some with SURPLUS ENERGY, others suffering FRICTION LOSSES, but the multiple bright colours remain. randomly allocated and refusing to correlate to any political party or level of the building, they generate an URGE TO MOVE, because it’s hard not to LIKE a VIBRANT environment.