Since the 980s, Ruedi Baur has been conceiving of his work as designer within the context of the public space. Laying claim to an interdisciplinary, civil-minded design approach, he touches on issues concerning identification, orientation, set design and urban design as well as the representation of political institutions and territories.
True to the spirit of his focus, Ruedi Baur founded the Design2context Institute of Design Research at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) in 2004, while, after its closing in 2011, he founded the Civic City Critical Design Research Institute with Vera Baur. He lectures and develops research programs at the Geneva University of Art and Design, EnsAD Paris and the University of Strasbourg, where he defended his thesis in 2016 entitled « Entre Identité et identification, les valeurs civiques des systèmes de représentation territoriaux » (“Between Identity and Identification, civic values of systems of territorial representation”). Since 2018, he has also been speaking at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and Sciences Po in Paris.
He founded the Integral Ruedi Baur Paris and Zurich studios, the IRB Laboratory of Applied Research and has recently created the “JEU” - Young University Company – Ten Billion Humans, a research and development studio with Vera Baur. Several books published by Lars Müller, Zurich, and Jean-Michel Place, Paris, present his creations and reflections. He was also the pioneer of the Social Design platform.
With the Intégral Paris team, he has just designed the passenger information system for the lines of the future Grand Paris metro (2022-2030).