SOUND DESIGN

by 13&9 design IN COLLABORATION WITH SEVERIN SU

The journey of the sound studio started in 2016, when 13&9 Design and INNOCAD architecture created a multisensory exhibition for Architektur Galerie Berlin and for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 at the European Cultural Centre. For this internationally awarded installation, electronic music producer and sound designer Severin Su co-created the project´s transformative soundscape. Since then, Severin and Martin Lesjak, co-founder of INNOCAD and 13&9 Design, have continued their in-depth collaboration, working on versatile sound design projects spanning from architectural and art exhibitions, movies, and fashion films up-to live audio-visual performances.

The transdisciplinary team’s holistic approach and diverse backgrounds contribute to various services ranging from SOUND DESIGN and TAILOR-MADE ELECTRONIC SOUNDTRACKS for virtual and physical environments to moving pictures, exhibitions, events, advertising, and interactive media. Furthermore, the studio offers MUSIC SUPERVISION & CONSULTING, POSTPRODUCTION as well as MIX & MASTERING.

In 2020, the studio collaborated with Lambda Labs, resulting in an acoustically refined, tailormade studio space with state-of-the-art gear.

The studio is led by producers, electronic artists and sound designers, Severin Su and Martin Lesjak. Their careers reflect a transdisciplinary approach and collaborative philosophy. Both founders have a background in electronic music, while Severin started off with a classic music education; he studied piano and vocals and in 2015, he began producing and releasing tracks for international electronic music labels. In addition to being the design visionary behind architecture firm INNOCAD, Martin´s foresight and expertise in art, design, and theatrics led to collaborations with different creatives. Together with Miller from Studio Superplus, he founded the collective Doctors on Decks in the early 2000s, performing their audio-visual shows internationally. In 2020, Severin joined the collective as the main songwriter and producer for THE MINUS LIVE SHOW.

As DOD (Doctors on Decks), they created THE MINUS LIVE SHOW, a multimedia synthesis of the arts whose concept has been cultivated over the last 10 years. With artists from all over the world, they’ve unfolded a universe that moves between art and entertainment in the form of images, texts, film, sound and music. THE MINUS — a sci-fi project without rules — is a story of a thousand stories, and some of them will be told by the Doctors in a night that somehow never ends.

Credits: © Studio Superplus

In collaboration with Doctors On Decks, Austrian sculptor and visual artist Manfred Erjautz has premiered his “Opera scultura”- The Closer I Get, The More I Drift Afar. The music for “Opera scultura” has been composed by Severin Su and Martin Lesjak with Aubert Crovato and recorded in 13&9’s Sound Design studio. Erjautz envisions – The Closer I Get, The More I Drift Afar. – as a river divided into four acts, flooding the space and meandering in a musical and visual-sculptural sequence. Performative side arms open up an artificial meadowscape of meta-levels that behave like communicating vessels. Transformation, as a primary stylistic device, turns the dot at the end of a sentence into the beginning of a drawing.

This work is a fusion of sculptural exhibition and opera, blending classical and modern electronic music, created in collaboration between classical composers and the electronic producers from Doctors On Decks to explore new territories in music, theater, and art. “Opera scultura” – The Closer | Get, The More I Drift Afar. – makes inner landscapes comprehensible and poses fundamental questions about human finiteness that exist within each of us, beyond the real present.

Credits: © 13&9 Design

AI’s rise is rewriting the world as we know it. But in which direction will we go? The Design Month Graz 2025 Opening Show “Awakening” by Flare Talents & Studio Sobu was a visual exploration of two contrasting futures – one filled with hope, the other with warning. Fashion became a lens to portray life in these imagined realities, capturing how people move, change, and stay human in the face of transformation.

Severin Su underlined the corresponding future oracles with an immersive sound experience which completed the concept and played a special role in communicating both, hope and warning of those imagined realities.

Credits: © Flare Talents / © Horizonfilms

Fractals are repeatable patterns that occur throughout our natural world. Scientists have found that we are fluent at perceiving fractals in nature and receiving their benefits. Building on our collaboration with 13&9 Design and Dr. Richard Taylor of Fractals Research, Fractal Findings expands Mohawk Group’s collections of fractal-based patterns that support well-being and are scientifically proven to reduce stress in all types of spaces. As a result, environments are more conducive for people to live, work, play, learn, and innovate.

Severin Su created a Biophilic Soundscape which embraces the concept of natural flow, animal migration, and natural forces – it emerges in a complete natural scenery of subconscious relaxation and wellness.

Credits: © Mohawk Group

Renaturation, named after the concept in which nature reclaims manmade or developed spaces, employs natural patterns in an approach to commercial design deeply grounded in science, design and wellness. The power of fractals, intricate, self-repeating patterns, is core to nature itself and has a proven impact on brain health and healing, improved wellbeing, and enhancing cognitive function. The resulting wallcovering collection transcends aesthetics, creating restorative environments with measurable benefits for occupants.

Severin Su created a Biophilic Soundscape which embraces the concept of natural growth, and flow – it emerges in a complete natural scenery of subconscious relaxation and wellness.

Credits: © Momentum Textiles and Wallcovering

In this competence center diverse biophilic design strategies contribute to health and wellbeing, ranging from dynamic lighting, natural materials, and science-based patterns to optimized acoustics as well as dynamic human-scale circulation. The modular carpet tiles, developed in collaboration with the team of Prof. Richard Taylor (Fractals Research and the University of Oregon), include science-informed, fractal patterns into the built environment as „nature’s restorative power could reduce mental fatigue and refresh the ability to concentrate, and in doing so prevent occupational burn-out“ as Rachel and Steven Kaplan conclude in their book „The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective“.

Credits: © The Renderers

“Fractals are everywhere in nature,” said Museum Donald M. Kerr Curator of Natural History Hayley Brazier, Ph.D., “from the tiniest, tiniest neuron in the brain to the organization of stars and planets in the galaxy. We want visitors to experience first-hand how those patterns build the natural world around us.”

Patterns at Play: Fractals in Nature is an original exhibition, which took place from February 22 – October 5 2025, that invites you to take a closer look at the universe’s curious practice of self-organization. An immersive, family-friendly experience, the exhibit encourages you to build your own patterns while an animation creates new fractals right before your eyes. Visitors should expect to play, touch, listen and watch in this whimsical exploration of nature.

Severin Su created the Fractal Composition No. 1, which accompanied and guided the visitors through the exhibition – it emerges in a complete natural scenery of subconscious relaxation and wellness.

Credits: © High Desert Museum