Overview

plattenbaustudio is a young architecture and drawing studio, based in Berlin and founded by Irish architects Jennifer O’Donnell and Jonathan Janssens. The studio works at the intersection between the fields of art, architecture and academia, purposefully situating itself on the borders between these different areas of focus, and always investigating the inhabitation of space as a fundamental, and influential aspect of human life.

The studio began making their first drawings in 2012, employing the types of detailed, technical drawings normally reserved for the architecture profession to study the ways in which people occupy the city (first Dublin, now Berlin). They reject the notion that the architectural drawing is a tool only of the construction industry, reserved for translating ideas into built structures. Instead, they see architectural drawing as a way to explore and analyse their surroundings, and as a tool with which to communicate and discuss the vastly complex nature of the built environment with others. Much of their work starts with an intensive survey analysis, which they then use as a base for understanding and exploring the manifold ways in which people react to and manipulate their surroundings. Many of the questions asked are simple ones- how do we live today, how might we live tomorrow, and what are the consequences of built space (including the regulation, appropriation and politicisation of the same) for the human being?

plattenbaustudio’s drawings have been exhibited at multiple group shows throughout Europe, including at the Irish Embassy Berlin, at the Describing Architecture exhibition at the City Assembly House in Dublin, at the National Craft Gallery in Kilkenny and at the London Design Museum as part of the London Festival of Architecture.