Henry Dunant, born in Geneva, lived from 1828 to 1910. He was the initiator of the International Red Cross, dedicated his life to this visionary idea, and played a key role in its realization. The last eighteen years of his life were spent as a guest in seclusion at a former district hospital in Heiden, Appenzell. After extensive revitalization, a museum was established there to honor the life and work of Henry Dunant. The exhibition, conceived by Kaba Rössler and Nadine Schneider and designed by Atelier Andrea Gassner, presents a contemporary display – multilingual and inclusive. The tight sequence of rooms on the ground floor served as a framework for a coherent dramaturgical progression of themes, content, and staging.

The journey begins right at the centrally located entrance. The Red Cross and the Red Crescent – the emblematic symbols of the international committee – are not simply depicted; they are meant to be discovered. Attention is rewarded when, upon looking at the mirrors on the ceiling, the white seating cubes on red carpets transform into the well-known symbols. In the left wing of the building, we encounter spaces for encounter and multimedia dialogue. The sequence of rooms in the right wing is organized around three main topics: the vision and principles of the ICRC, Henry Dunant’s life path, and his existence and rehabilitation in Heiden. Sensually tangible key elements are placed in the center of each room, while walls and window openings are used as displays for content delivery.

Stone sculpture in the first room: Four towering stone slabs, slanted menacingly into the room, are held together by a red band, preventing them from toppling. This stylized cross is inscribed with seven key words that form the foundation of the Red Cross's principles. These words describe humanitarian values that must apply even in the extreme aggression of warfare.

Passage in the middle room: Dunant’s life was marked by both great successes and misguided paths, as well as deep crises. Four towering arches create shifts in perspective and direction within the room, symbolizing the fractures and triumphs in Dunant’s life. The installation is accompanied by a timeline, with additional information available via foldable printed materials mounted on the wall.

Room within a room: We are now in the very place where Henry Dunant, two floors above and over a hundred years earlier, became a hermit for many years. Four semi-transparent, movable fabric panels form an almost enclosed, yet walkable, interior space, making this "cocooning" experience palpable.

 The windows of the rooms offer us unusual views: key messages on translucent fabric panels, the outside world framed through colored glass as picturesque images, and monitors seamlessly integrated into the wall openings, showcasing video testimonies from credible witnesses. It is the coherent script of this focused exhibition, with its impactful scenes, and a bold, creative interpretation, that explains the museum's early success with the public, even in the first weeks after its opening. Visitors with mobility or visual impairments are also able to independently explore the exhibition in an engaging way, thanks to tactile orientation aids, audio stations, and the deliberate low hanging of exhibits.

The circle plays a significant role in the new family center of the Nenzing community—whether in the fairy-tale-like architecture with its rounded arches on windows and doors, or in the guidance system featuring pictograms and elements specifically designed around circles. The facility is called "allesamt." This name, developed during a workshop with the client, has a pleasant ring, feels familiar, and conveys the essence of the community's vision: inclusiveness. It welcomes all the village's children, as well as their parents. The "allesamt" lettering is prominently placed on the building's street-facing edge. The seemingly random spacing between the letters—both large and small—mirrors the rhythm of the façade's design, transforming the name into a logo and emphasizing its phonetic charm.

Pictograms as Play
For concise and memorable room labeling, the center uses names derived from local community parcels and an abbreviation-based counting rhyme familiar to children:

"Be La Gu – Ro Ha Ru – Mo Ma Hei – und du bisch frei!"

These two-letter terms designate the various functions of the rooms in the building. However, it's the combination with graphic symbols that makes them easy to remember for both children and adults. To draw attention to this sign system and encourage playful interaction, changeable pictograms have been installed at child-friendly heights. For example, in the central dining area, colorful discs on a plate invite rearrangement into shapes like flowers or emojis. In the sleeping areas, there are eyes that can open and close. In the sports and activity room, a spinning soccer ball is featured, while the oasis area showcases letters "riding" on waves.

Summed Up
The building is spatially organized into four diagonally offset "houses" running from west to east. To aid orientation, the main entrances and rooms for the three different child groups are marked in the primary colors red, blue, and green. Wayfinding begins even before reaching the building: in the nearby underpass, large dots on walls and ceilings grab attention. Additional dots appear as floor markings on sidewalks, in the parking lot, and along the path to the center.

The sign design by Atelier Andrea Gassner seamlessly integrates visual and verbal elements into the architectural concept. Here too, the playful, colorful guidance system fits naturally into the overall design, adding an imaginative accent and extending the story of this new communal living space in a creative way. The overarching goal is to significantly enhance the identification and connection to this positive space for children and families in Nenzing.

This not for profit association pursues the goal of developing a sensitivity for the built environment among children and young people and aims to secure a place for the culture of building in the Swiss educational curriculum. It was founded in 2008 under the name “Spacespot”. Due to its strange phonetic presence, the name Spacespot, like many trendy pseudo-Anglicisms, turned out to be short-lived. Atelier Andrea Gassner was commissioned to create a sustainable and contemporary brand. It was decided that the name for the German and French-language space should indicate what the association does and what can be found on the platform. The name was arrived at in a workshop that was held together with the heads of the association. When the idea for the name was first mentioned the group was immediately delighted with it. It arose in the context of an associative phonetic chain that started with “Archigen” and through the ending “jeunes” suddenly provided the key to a precise meaning: architecture and the art of building for young people

In designing the logotype Atelier Andrea Gassner made a simple yet highly effective intervention in the compactly set name that uses a powerful Antiqua typeface. Omitting the dots above the “i” and the “j” in the new name at the point of contact between two language cultures makes a subtle visual point. Often it is very simple distortions of familiar word images that guarantee brands that are concise and highly memorable.

“überholz” is the name of a new course in timber building at the University of Art and Design in Linz Names such as “the art of timber building” or “timber construction”, or poetic terms such as “Dickicht” (thicket) or “Stirnholz” (end grain wood) were some more obvious choices. The reduction to simple familiar words is surprising; the problems with the umlaut become the characteristic. The word “über” (about, through) suggests the transfer of knowledge and “holz” (wood) is simply called by its name. Aspects of architecture and planning are communicated by the typographical implementation. Here we are familiar with the word “Holz”, but what does it say to an Italian public? The Italian partners assured us that the target group in Italy is also familiar with the term “Holz”. It is hard to pronounce – a tongue-twister and a foreign word – but precisely on this account is suitable for the “corsi” (timber building seminars) of the Italian proHolz subsidiary organisation, “promo legno”.

A monochrome logotype: the word “Lehm” is set in the Grotesque font, Trade Gothic bold condensed, whereas the “o” is in an Antiqua (font type: New York). The Antiqua makes the “o” resonate and creates exciting contrasts between traditional and modern, filigree and stable. Reinhard Gassner

The former “Architekturforum Tirol” opened its new rooms in 2005 in the renovated brewhouse of the old Adambräu brewery in Innsbruck. This was linked with a call for a contemporary appearance. In a workshop together with Walter Bohatsch a name was arrived at. The new name for this association was “aut“ and was intended to hover freely, almost experimentally, in space without any associations such as institute, gallery or forum – on the contrary it was to be provocative and agitative and not an abbreviation with just three letters. In the initial phase the name was supported by a claim. The most interesting thing happens in-between, as it were, between the familiar term “out”, which of course starts not with an “a” but an “o”, and the simple way in which the sequence of letters can be explained by three words. Lettering + subline »architektur und tirol«.

The task was to design a name and appearance for a software company. The company’s dual track character is programmatic: on the one hand it offers high-tech content management systems and on the other creative, but standardised, software solutions. In a workshop with the client it was decided to use a freely invented onomatopoeic name. The solution consisted of two letters, actually just one form of letter that stands alternately on its feet or on its head – nu – n and u, not u and n, which would have had a far more negative connotation; the dynamics and the combined effect of the letters harbours numerous meanings, nu functions like a kind of acoustic pictogram, which is due to the familiar and yet at the same time unfamiliar quality of this name. It is too short to be abbreviated, it awakens curiosity and relates to the number two. This association is played with visually with by swivelling the letters in the logotype and in other applications – 2 colours with 2 x 2 letters that, when overlaid, produce new forms and colours.

The name zuschnitt stands for a magazine about wood as a material and works made of wood. It is aimed primarily at architects, people interested in building and those who make decisions about building in Austria and neighbouring countries. The title avoids words such as “wood”, “building” or “architecture”. Nevertheless it reports about wood, processing, series, the made-to-measure form. The language elements are the acceleration of the word at the beginning due to the “Z”, and the two terminating consonants at the end of the word. Consequently the middle part works as a resonance space for the two vowels, “u” and “i”.