Atelier Jörg Rügemer’s design/research/practice approach pushes the boundaries of architecture and urban design and is driven by a holistic, conceptual approach combined with experimental proceedings within the architectural activity, to create environmentally and socially responsible and resilient architecture. The intensive engagement with the genius loci – the project location – has a central meaning in every individual design task, creating buildings that are intimately connected to their local and regional context. Concepts of sustainability, the examination of the building program, functional integration, the interior organization, and a target budget with a budgetary responsibility are incorporated in early work processes to ensure the best possible results. In the dialogue between location, space, and the respective task set by the client, specific and distinctive architectural solutions are explored that create each project’s own spatial identity and architectural expression.

Within this procedure, the utilization of the physical and three-dimensional model leads to a clear understanding of architectural space and represents the base of AJR’s design process. Using the model as a tool, each project is developed intensively and comprehensibly. This strategy is supported by the employment of digital tools, design technologies, and finally energy simulation, to create the best possible project outcome for each specific project.

The design process is not necessarily a linear procedure that starts with an initial idea, a sketch, the model, the further development in predetermined steps, and a final presentation. To receive the optimal result, the design process means iteration; it means progress that moves back and forth between different stages of development and scales, with an outcome that might not have always been foreseen. Quality of space, sustainability and resilience, construction, materiality, and the meaning of the detail are important topics within each project at Atelier Jörg Rügemer.

AJR is interested in investigations of new fields within the profession, in which innovation, technology, and resilience play a major role in the development of new and creative solutions. AJR understands each project as an opportunity to rethink traditional concepts and approaches. The Atelier has developed projects that began to connect physical and virtual spaces, offering concepts for this specific field. AJR has also challenged the limits of sustainable design, especially with regard to cost-efficiency and buildability, developing results that stand out for their quality in architecture, space, indoor health, and high performance.

Atelier Jörg Rügemer’s professional repertoire includes architectural and urban design, residential and commercial architecture, landscape architecture, design and interior architecture, and global networking. Aspects of resilience and green technologies play an important role in each project. The work of the Atelier has been published and exhibited worldwide. Jörg Rügemer is a registered architect in Germany and eligible to practice in all member states of the European Union; he is an International Associate of the American Institute of Architects, AIA.