Projects

From competition wins to award-winning publications.

Every reference tells its background, approach and outcome. A selection of our projects across City, Transfer and Culture that shows how we work.

City

Flora Momentum, competition win 2025

An art installation made of lenticular prints and seating furniture revitalises Stephanplatz and creates a new urban vision.

Background

A design concept was sought to revitalise the public space at Stephanplatz in Karlsruhe.

Brief and approach

ato won the competition in 2025 with “Flora Momentum”, an installation of lenticular prints and mirror elements. Artistic work: Hannah Cooke. Product design: Jannik Lang. Concept and curation: Norina Quinte. In terms of content, the work explores the medicinal plants of the future near a pharmacy, designed by the artist with the help of AI. From these works, the team took the forms and translated them into urban furniture.

Outcome

The realised work comprises several seating and standing islands, an existing open-air exhibition and a mirrored intervention on the pharmacy façade. Freely accessible since May 2025. The work has been made permanent and can be seen at Stephanplatz in Karlsruhe.

Competition: Won in 2025
Location: Stephanplatz, Karlsruhe
Period: Accessible since May 2025
Team: Hannah Cooke, Jannik Lang, Norina Quinte

City

Kandel 2025, concepts for town-centre revitalisation

How a traditional municipality rethinks its town centre, with an approach that transfers to other towns.

Background

The town of Kandel wanted to revitalise its town centre and tackle vacancy. The starting point was an existing image concept that needed to be developed further.

Brief and approach

ato ran a workshop in which an interdisciplinary team of town administration staff and artists developed the image concept further using playful, creative methods. The results were presented at the public exhibition “Stadt, Land, Fluss”, designed and curated by Sabine Adler and Tim Bohlender, and assessed by visitors.

Outcome

Initial guiding ideas and conceptual approaches emerged. One of the concepts for revitalising the town centre will be delivered from 2026, with others in planning.

Client: Town of Kandel
Location: Kandel
Period: August 2025
Team: Hannah Klein, Maike Denker, Sara Kim Haese, Lea Deutschmann, Benjamin Burkhard

City

Artini 2023–2025, an art bar as a vacancy format

A repeatable format with a fixed sequence that municipalities and property owners can commission directly.

Background

Vacant town-centre spaces need tested concepts for new use. Changing locations were to be temporarily reactivated in parallel with art Karlsruhe.

Brief and approach

An interdisciplinary team of curators, spatial planners and artists developed the temporary art bar artini several times, each running alongside art Karlsruhe. In 2023 in a former Covid testing station near Karlsruhe Central Station, in 2024 in a three-storey shop unit in the Karlsruhe pedestrian zone, in 2025 in a listed building in Rheinstetten.

Outcome

A meeting place for art audiences and the wider public. The 2025 edition presented more than 20 artistic positions in a site-specific exhibition with a wide-ranging supporting programme and involved local actors such as the Kunstverein.

Client: Stadt Rheinstetten (2025)
Location: Karlsruhe Central Station (2023), Karlsruhe pedestrian zone (2024), Rheinstetten (2025)
Period: in February 2023, 2024 and 2025
Curatorial lead: Norina Quinte
Co-curation: Sabine Adler, Anna-Lina Helsen, Carolin Heel

Transfer

ARTCOM, a transfer method with KIT

A BMBF research project commissioned by KIT: an agile transfer method drawing on art and science.

Background

Knowledge transfer between research, industry, politics and society needs methods that go beyond conventional formats. ARTCOM treats art as a driver for transforming infrastructures and social processes and develops agile transfer methods for sustainable infrastructure development.

Brief and approach

In the ARTCOM research project, ato and KIT are jointly developing agile transfer methods over a period of three years that connect scientific and artistic expertise in various formats. Artists and researchers work directly with representatives from politics, urban planning and industry. Art is integrated here as an expertise in its own right in planning and decision-making processes.

Outcome

A transferable toolkit, documented and publicly available at artcom.hub-bau.kit.edu. Applied, among other things, to the development of an interdisciplinary Transfercampus at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences.

Client: KIT, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Funding: BMBF research project
Project lead, KIT: Christina Becker, KIT Innovation HUB, in collaboration with Hannah Klein and Norina Quinte (ato)
Team: Maike Denker, Benjamin Breitkopf, Kilian Kretschmer, Hannah Cooke
Location & period: Karlsruhe, 2023–2026

ARTCOM @ KIT · transfer format in practice

Culture

WERKstattPALAST, a science and culture festival at the Rhine harbour

What we put on under our own steam shows best what we deliver for clients.

Background

How can a public site be activated as a meeting point for art and science over several weeks? The WERKstattPALAST approached the theme of (infra)structure from many angles.

Brief and approach

ato designed, built and ran a purpose-built pavilion at the Karlsruhe Rhine harbour. Over ten weeks it hosted a curated programme of salons, performances, workshops and dialogues, in close collaboration with the KIT Innovation Hub – Prävention im Bauwesen. Around 190 contributors from across Germany helped shape the programme. An exhibition featuring more than 40 artists completed the offering.

Outcome

95 events, more than 5,500 visitors, over 30 experts, more than 70 interviews and over 40 artists.

Lead: ato in-house production
Location: Karlsruhe Rhine harbour
Period: 12 August to 15 October 2022
Funding: BMBF (now BMFTR)

Aerial view · Karlsruhe Rhine harbour 2022

Culture

Haus Marlene Poelzig, Berlin

An award-winning publication about the demolition of a house and questions of equality in building culture.

Background

Designed between 1929 and 1930 by the architect and artist Marlene Poelzig, the residential and studio house in Berlin-Grunewald was demolished in 2021. This raised questions about equality in building culture and about how we treat cultural heritage.

Brief and approach

ato took on co-editorship of the publication „Haus Marlene Poelzig, Berlin. Abriss und Aufbruch“ (Urbanophil Verlag): building the network and editorial team, developing research and interview formats, working with original documents and staging the launch event with an artistic installation. More than 20 authors contributed, alongside the artists Francis Karat and Constanze Zacharias.

Outcome

The print publication was released in June 2025, with the launch held on 28 June 2025 at Kino Babylon Berlin. It received the Architectural Book Award 2025, presented by the Deutsches Architekturmuseum and the Frankfurt Book Fair. The work was widely covered in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, taz, Bauwelt and on Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Role: Co-editorship
Commission: Bundesministerium für Wohnen, Stadtentwicklung und Bauwesen
Publisher: Urbanophil Verlag
Location: Berlin-Grunewald
Period: 2021 to 2025
Award: Architectural Book Award 2025

Publication · Haus Marlene Poelzig, Berlin

Culture

Orange Days, an intervention against violence against women

An artistic intervention makes a societal issue visible in public space.

Background

On the occasion of the UN campaign “Orange the World”, gender-based violence in Karlsruhe's public space was to be made visible. ato was asked to broker suitable artists and to support the action.

Brief and approach

The installation “Hermanas” is by the artist collective Francis Karat. ato brokered the collective and supported its realisation: together with the science office of Karlsruhe's economic development agency, selected monuments were wrapped in orange for 16 days and linked via QR codes to a digital layer.

Outcome

The strong visual signal of the “Hermanas” installation in the urban space created low-threshold attention that prompted both reflection and dialogue. Coverage appeared in outlets including BNN and ka-news.

Partner: Science office of Karlsruhe's economic development agency
Artists: Francis Karat (collective)
Location: Karlsruhe town centre
Period: 25 November to 10 December 2025 (16 days)

Culture

Rhineland-Palatinate Triennial 2026

Norina Quinte and Dr. Carolin Heel devised and curated the first statewide art triennial in Rhineland-Palatinate as lead curators.

Background

The Ministry for Family, Women, Culture and Integration of Rhineland-Palatinate commissioned the BBK Rheinland-Pfalz to organise a new format that conveys artistic work connected to the state, opens up exhibition spaces in new ways and enters into dialogue with history. The role of curatorial lead was advertised for this purpose.

Brief and approach

From more than 500 submissions, the curatorial team selected 53 artistic positions together with an expert jury. At its heart are new presentation formats and narrative approaches that challenge conventional exhibition practice.

Outcome

The premiere runs from 24 April to 31 May 2026 in Trier, across 12 diverse exhibition venues: Trier Cathedral (Dom St. Peter), the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, the Kunsthalle Trier, the Tuchfabrik TUFA, vacant spaces, the deconsecrated Pauluskirche, UNESCO World Heritage sites such as the Trier Amphitheatre, and the public realm.

Role: Curatorial lead: Norina Quinte (ato) & Dr. Carolin Heel
Organiser: BBK Rheinland-Pfalz and Ministerium für Familie, Frauen, Kultur und Integration
Locations: Trier: 12 venues, including Trier Cathedral, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, the Kunsthalle, the Tuchfabrik TUFA, the Amphitheatre
Period: 24 April to 31 May 2026
Selection: 53 positions from more than 500 submissions

The team of the Rhineland-Palatinate Triennial 2026 · Trier