D’Rink is a concept for a drinking fountain in the public space of Düsseldorf, developed in the course “Drinking Fountains for Düsseldorf” (Trinkbrunnen für Düsseldorf) at the Peter Behrens School of Arts (PBSA) of Hochschule Düsseldorf (HSD). Three gently curved plastic pipes of differing heights rise from a laser-cut base plate with a concentric wave pattern and act as water outlets; a channel set into the plate takes up the run-off.
The course theme “More Than Human” asks how drinking fountains can serve not only people but also animals and plants. The line of the pipes was developed in wire studies and water tests; the wave pattern of the plate was later digitised by 3D scan – the basis for a 1:10 model and for the visualisation at Worringer Platz. The prototype was shown on 10 October 2026 in the exhibition “More Than Human” at Worringer Platz.
Visualisation & 3D Print
The renderings show D’Rink at full scale in two places in Düsseldorf: on Gustaf-Gründgens-Platz in front of the Schauspielhaus and on Schadowplatz by the Kö-Bogen. The plate, made from the two laser files, sits flush with the ground, with the technology in a shaft below. Three stainless steel pipes deliver the water: an arching jet into a bowl for dogs, a jet for drinking and mist from the tallest pipe. All views are at pedestrian eye level.
Section, cutaway and top view show the installation. For the 1:10 model, a two-layer plate, three pipes and a plug-in system were made for 3D printing.
Campaign for the exhibition “More Than Human – Drinking Fountains. Not only people need water” (More Than Human – Trinkbrunnen. Nicht nur Menschen brauchen Wasser), in which the drinking fountain designs from the course are shown at Worringer Platz. A black-and-white moiré of undulating rows of dots takes up the wave pattern of D’Rink and carries a large-scale wordmark; date, venue and funding are a fixed part of the layout.
The reverse repeats the claim in seven languages – German, English, French, Turkish, Ukrainian, Russian and Arabic – and brings together the logos of HSD, PBSA, KreativRaumD and the sustainability foundation of Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf. Variants for A5 flyers, A2 posters, Instagram and email were derived from the basic layout.
The atrium of Hochschule Düsseldorf, with its broad concrete staircase, is a place of passage: most people sit down only briefly, look at their phones and move on, because the concrete is cold and hard. Counting, tracing and mapping its use over several days made this visible. The intervention responds with seat cushions: tote bags filled with foam and lettered by hand in Helvetica, which lined up in a row form sentences – “Let’s Make Some Space”, “Be Bold”, “Is This Human?”.
Hung on the wire fence and spread across the steps, the cushions invite people to stay; taking one changes the sentence. Interviews and a survey after the exhibition showed more and longer use of the staircase – and a wish for seat cushions for the lecture series. As a next step, a wooden box on the steps was developed in which the cushions can stay permanently.
Zettels Traum × Pilz (“Zettel’s Dream × Slime Mould”) is a generative approach to Arno Schmidt’s “Zettel’s Traum” using the growth rules of the slime mould Physarum polycephalum. It begins with an experiment: oat flakes mark letter positions, the organism draws its connections inside a dark box, and a flatbed scanner documents the growth every 30 minutes – the pulse of light from each scan influences the direction of growth and is accepted as part of the co-authorship.
The scans yield growth rules for a simulation: Schmidt’s text (slips 1401–1599) forms the veins of a simulated mould, and the type size follows the progress of reading. The result is twelve panels, a publication and four poster series of twenty A0 posters each – Classic, Archetypes, Yellow, Free – for the exhibition “Collaborating with the Unknown” at the Bilker Bunker, Düsseldorf (17–19 July 2026), whose complete exhibition design was developed together with Henning Sostmann. Set generatively in Python and JavaScript from Helvetica Neue, DIN Condensed, Garara and Menlo; printed by WhiteWall on canvas.
A pure CPU renderer for images of water interference: waves from one to five point sources overlap into hyperbolic caustic lines on dark blue water, with a soft sky gradient, an overexposed reflection of the sun and bloom. Two presets – “front” and “back” – are laid out for printing at A5; a browser-based live preview tool sets camera, sky, caustics and sun with sliders.
Further self-built tools belong to this: “Schattenkarte” (shadow map) breaks photographs down into values, notan and outline and derives a shading guide for drawing from them; the “Typo-Generator” sets text according to the rules of Swiss typography and lists every micro-typographic correction with its reasoning. On the website the water is interactive: a tap drops a ripple, holding sets a fixed source, scrolling changes the wavelength, and a word typed into the field becomes a wave itself.
Käfer Design (Beetle Design) is a book about the design work of nature. Across some 190 pages, beetles stand as designed objects – black-spotted tortoise beetle, Eupholus weevil, golden jewel beetle – each one cut out on its own colour field derived from its shell, with a profile opposite giving the German and scientific name, origin and characteristics.
The photographs were taken in the studio, then cut out and sharpened. The cover translates the structure of the shell into a holographic pattern, and the coloured pages form a rainbow edge on the closed book; foreword, contents, glossary and index frame the picture section. Produced together with Elliot Buro in the Editorial course.
fiftyfifty is Düsseldorf’s street magazine and the aid organisation behind it: vendors who live or have lived on the street, social work, a soup kitchen, Housing First. In a block seminar with the DOCKS collective, Garlef Meyer, Maria Böhm and Rebecca Riks spent a week following what lies behind the name – starting with a city tour on which Björn and Pino, both formerly homeless, showed the places where life on the street takes place.
Days followed in the office and café in Oberbilk, in the soup kitchen in the old town and during the move of Stephan, who, with the help of Housing First, moved into his first flat of his own. The pictures document encounters at eye level and a part of the city that usually stays in the background. Shown is the joint sequence from the final presentation, photographed by Maria Böhm, Garlef Meyer and Rebecca Riks; the work continues.
“Like a Hurricane” is a photographic artist book about memory, closeness and transience. The analogue black-and-white photographs were taken on coasts between Donostia-San Sebastián, Wales and Scotland: horizons, expanses of water and shorelines. The pictures show weather, light and open space more than particular places.
Instead of a linear narrative, the book works with repetition, cropping and pairs of images; generous white space and changing formats slow down the act of leafing through. Single lines from Neil Young’s song “Like a Hurricane” (1977) sit between the pictures and set the tone of the book. Printed and bound by WhiteWall in an edition of three, made in the Photobook Seminar in winter semester 2025/26.
The project takes up the lettering on the backs of classic football shirts, mainly from the Premier League of the nineties. The letters are taken directly from photos of real shirts: cropped, cut out and traced. The shapes stay as rough as they are on the fabric and are not straightened.
Several variants per letter form the variable typeface TrikotVF. Its “Trikot” axis blends smoothly between the sources, for example between the R of Müller, Rooney, Ronaldo and a retro shirt. It is based on his own collection of around 2,000 match photos taken from behind. The type is also shown on a rebuilt Manchester City shirt (third kit, 1993–95), modelled and animated in Blender. On the website the shirt can be rotated and zoomed, and a name typed into the field appears on the back.
Analogue photographs from Seoul on three rolls of film – Kodak Gold 200, Kodak UltraMax 400 and a 500T cine film. The focus is on architecture and urban space: the Gyeongbokgung palace, glazed towers with illuminated lettering, ceiling structures, a promenade under an overcast sky.
The series is at the same time visual material for the term paper “An Alphabet as a Blueprint” (Ein Alphabet als Bauplan) – observations on Hangul in public space.
Four rolls of film from one summer, scanned on a Frontier: Kodak Gold 200 for coast and mudflats, Portra 400 for the Alps and the promenade, plus a further colour film and Ilford HP5+ in black and white. Empty, quiet landscapes – a tidal creek through the salt marsh on the North Sea, a ridge on Cardada-Cimetta above Locarno, a view of the open sea.
Shot on 35 mm, developed and scanned at the lab.
Friends not Formalities (FnF) is a collective of young artists and designers from Hochschule Düsseldorf. It creates spaces in which young voices become visible – regardless of status, budget or connections; all sales proceeds go to a charity chosen by the exhibiting artists. The first edition took place in June 2025 at the Bilker Bunker in Düsseldorf: illustration, animation, painting, photography and installation on around 100 square metres, plus live tattooing, a talk on visibility, a panel discussion and a DJ in the evening. Some 300 to 400 visitors came over two days.
Garlef Meyer has accompanied the collective as a photographer since its founding – from sorting prints on the bunker floor to installation and hanging, the opening, conversations and the party. The photographs were shot on analogue medium-format and 35 mm film, in colour and black and white, and together with the work of two other photographers form the collective’s visual documentation.
