A racing spirit drives design

Wayfinding signage and site branding.

The signage and wayfinding scheme was development in response to a resolved architectural and landscape design for a new High School as part of a substantial scale residential development on the site of a famous race track known as Oran Park. Taking inspiration from this history the landscape and built form integrated a range of clever and subtle references to its past use. Pathways within the grounds playfully evoked the historic course with sweeping track-like bends and straights but on a smaller human scale.

The signage scheme for the grounds took its leads from spatial system that broke the large scale site into alphabetised blocks that became the central navigation coding for the site. Colours were introduced to identify specific floors within the buildings and smaller sections numbered. An opportunity emerged to brand the entrance to the school which enabled the design of an interactive element drawing directly on the racing cars. A range of vertical blades forming a fence-like panel (which satisfied Government mandated requirements around security) were all faced with a slice of image affixed to each side. The sign form was situated in such a way as to bring an image of a racing car in to and out of a complete form as the student walks past the sign.

Progressive educational strategies seek to integrate and bring to life the built form of the learning environment. In this way the student has an opportunity to become aware of various functions of the building including environmental and mechanical operations. In line with this Working Images conceived of a system of information panels referencing the speech bubble whereby interesting facts about the building could ‘speak’ to the students. These were colour coded to highlight various aspects and a range of scales introduced.

The scheme was modest in its aspirations and clear on its requirements: simply to bring a clarity to the identification and navigation of spaces primarily for new visitors to the site, reference the materiality of the built forms and to add vibrancy to the overall site aesthetic. Through his small intervention expanding the role of signage from one purely function to one where it may actively contribute to a positive visitor experience.