OUGD502 - Studio Brief 02 - Wayfinding Developments

After the initial ideas development stage, it was decided as a group to focus on the arts and crafts movement as a link to the history of the university, as well as results from the student survey which suggested that students prefer to work in natural environments (light, plants, etc), but attempt to make these elements look more contemporary to fit in with modern day. The colour scheme we all decided on were very toned down, natural colours to fit in with this theme.

In terms of light, it was thought we could incorporate the old neon strip lighting found in the existing building as a feature of the new wayfinding system, whereby each course would be represented by a different colour. This colour would be present in a long neon strip across the walls or ceilings to direct students to the correct departments. For this we decided to use the chosen colour scheme and mock up the neon strips in these colours to show how the idea would potentially work.

Another thing we found through our research was that the existing university building includes mosaic features, such as in the logo and on the building details. This mosaic, collaged approach is something we also found linked back to the arts and crafts movement, therefore we thought about experimenting with this style in producing tiles to hold floor numbers. In doing so, we experimented with using typical leaf shapes situated around each number, again using our chosen colour scheme.