Paula Scher has been involved with some great projects in the past which I have enjoyed seeing, such as the New jersey Performing Arts Centre which had a typographic face lift. shown below.
On Architype Review, I came across another project that Paula and Pentagram have been involved with for the First Endeavour Middle School. If only my schools had been so interesting instead of drab post Victorian grey boxes. It's been said countless times about having an interesting environment to work in produces greater results but still we build and decorate educational and corporate establishments to be conformist and dull. Architects should make these spaces somewhere that you don't mind spending time in instead of constantly waiting for the clock to turn round to going home time.
The ideas for the slogans themselves actually came form the teachers who had used them in some of their lectures to students. The students also were encouraged to use them as stickers for their lockers or on their sketchbooks which obviously helps reinforce the messages. I also like how they are visible from the street as well so it helps the building exterior to look more vibrant and to bring the inside out and vice versa. Its amazing what you can do with a few tins of paint and a few stencils!
Its such a great idea and a cost effective solution to lift an interior. I would love to design something similar for a supermarket. Just think of the fun you could have with type and imagery in those massive spaces instead of what we have to put up with now. In fact i might try and put together some visuals to see how it would look and you never know, there might be the opportunity in the near future to put it into action somewhere. It might be easier to start with a smaller chain of stores who need their profile raising especially as it is not a costly project to achieve in terms of materials and is mostly labour costs.
Another project that caught my eye was for the University of Washington. Where their School of Art is based, sits next to the School of Business and they wanted something to link the two together. The concept by Studio Matthews and Karen Chung was to use type to integrate into the fabric of the building and to utilise the movement of the elevators in the new building. On every floor is the word Change along with different phrases which interlink to form new phrases. They also used loose change coins from different countries to symbolise the diversity of the University.
No comments:
Post a Comment