WAYFINDING SIGNAGE
- OMH
- Mar 13, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 3, 2020
"Copper is perfect apart from it's incredible conducting skills."
The use of way finding in our Tolworth project has mostly been done by the use of nature such as moss panels, wild flower meadow patches, rural pathing and wall climbing plants, which we believe to be a great way of keeping the public on the path towards their destination but to also simply enjoy the walk to the destination - Paths don't have to be ugly right? As our campaign 'Same routes, new ideas' evolved I found myself designing a logo (look at the logo and slogan blog) that looked like a T made out of tree routes, this was just for me to illustrate what our campaign is in a simple yet effective way, but from this the idea that the tree T could be incorporated further into our campaign grew. It soon hit me that the tree routes of the T looked like a signpost, like they were pointing in a certain direction. This was when I had found the other way finding feature that we can perfectly slot into our nature orientated project.
As soon as the idea of using a tree as way finding entered my brain I had my eyes and heart targeted on using copper as it has the perfect aesthetic for a natural looking tree, its a hard metal that is good in any weather and it looks incredible when it is embedded in nature, as you can see from above, greens go perfectly with it. These factors made it clear that this idea could be extremely strong due to the fact that, yes its not actually natural, but signage like this is as good and as close to nature as we could get.
However problems arose when we found out that copper is a huge conductor of electricity, which can be said to be an issue if it is in a public area. I had the brilliant idea of wrapping a tree with this copper signage so it would become almost part of the tree while acting as signage as well, however, big conductor of electricity wrapped around a tree is a risk factor - I wouldn't want to be standing by that tree in a thunder and lightening storm. This was a shame but we did some more research and although it is a conductor, basically everything is a conductor - Everything is made out of metal? So this made us believe we can still do it and consulting with 121collective as well as Natalie's father who works with metal, they backed up our idea... Although copper is really quite expensive and this certain metal is prone to being stolen, I am a strong believer in 'investment in the community and you will see the benefits on the other side' so the idea of our signs or The Observatory or our plants being destroyed/vandalised doesn't scare me away from doing this campaign at all. In fact, The Community Brain told us that shop keepers and local residents are loving the plants being planted in the area and are actually maintaining them to keep them healthy which is extremely positive to hear.
(CREDIT TO NATALIE FOR THE SCULPTURE VISUALS AND KAWINNA FOR THE DEER MURAL)
As you can see it works perfectly on it's own but it almost looks better when it is wrapped around something that is already there, for example the community announcement board which is located in Alexandre Park, we know that the public will go there to see what is happening anyway, so putting our way finding signage there makes it far more accessible to the public. Another great example is the copper root being wrapped around man made fences or walk ways as it adds a completely different dynamic to it, it is subtle but does a tremendous job at standing out which is important to people following the path as they will be constantly reminded they are going the right way, if the natural biophilic way finding isn't obvious enough, a big copper tree will keep everyone on the right path.
https://www.dezeen.com/2012/09/11/reconstruction-of-the-szatmary-palace-by-marp/
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/605171268666072161/
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