Kiku Obata & Company

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri is the site of a modern icon – the Gateway Arch by Eero Saarinen – and a historic 91-acre landscape by Dan Kiley. Michael Van Valkenburg Associates (MVVA) won the City Arch River international design competition in 2010 with a visionary plan to revitalize the Arch grounds, the riverfront and portions of the neighboring downtown.

As part of this scope, MVVA led the redesign of Kiener Plaza, the city’s main public square that links the National Park Arch grounds with the Gateway Mall – the main public space downtown that includes Citygarden and Richard Serra’s public sculpture Twain. We were commissioned by MVVA to design signage for the revitalized Kiener Plaza.

MVVA’s work in public space and landscape is characteristically contemporary and timeless, understated yet equally graphic. The signage for Kiener Plaza maintains these same qualities by using a contemporary sans serif with distinctive characters that offset it from being a more standard grotesque typeface. To sit discreetly within the minimalist environment, signage is etched directly into surfaces and left plain or filled with color. Forms are constructed from stainless steel – the material used by the landscape architects throughout the Plaza and also for the Arch, which is prominently visible on the far end of the two-block Plaza. The system includes the attribution for “The Runner” – the sculpture that sits at the center of the main fountain; donor recognition for those who funded the revitalization; and playground signage. With play and public spaces, Kiener Plaza is a sophisticated yet informal gathering place for the city, a sensibility echoed in our design scheme.

The City of Clayton is the county seat of St. Louis, Missouri bordering the City of St. Louis. Its downtown business district is one of the fastest growing in the region with a diverse population of local residents and professionals; and attracts many visitors to its government center and area restaurants and shops. People travel to and around Clayton by car despite it being well-connected by public transport and incredibly walkable. In an effort to change this, the City of Clayton commissioned us to create a pedestrian and vehicular wayfinding program that makes it easy to navigate the city on foot and encourages people to park upon arrival, ultimately reducing road congestion.

We carried out a wayfinding study and led a series of public consultations to identify issues. We found that even long-time residents who knew the city well still relied heavily on their cars out of habit, but also because of a misconception about the time it takes to walk from one place to another. We developed a comprehensive signage system that includes pedestrian fingerposts with times to key places, kiosks with pedestrian maps, vehicular directionals and parking identification.

While downtown Clayton has many contemporary skyscrapers, the streetscape has a traditional quality with brick pavings and cast-iron lampposts. Our intent was to create a modern signage system that could sit within this context with restraint – to have a contemporary, yet timeless aesthetic that is highly visible but with a subtle presence. We designed the full system in black, powder-coated steel, with pedestrian signage accented with red-orange caps. Each kiosk includes You-Are-Here pedestrian maps, created for all unique locations. Our team carried out all aspects of the project, including wayfinding, map design and industrial design. The final system included over 100 signs installed across the full extent of Clayton’s downtown.

We were commissioned by the Saint Louis Art Museum to design wayfinding and signage for its expansion by David Chipperfield Architects. The original and main building, designed by Cass Gilbert, was built as one of the exhibition pavilions for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Significant growth in the collection’s contemporary artworks led to a major commission to expand the museum. The new pavilion sits with understatement in the landscape, set back within a grove of trees beside the original Beaux Arts building.

Our brief was to develop a wayfinding scheme that unites the original museum with the new modern wing, creating one system to be used throughout both spaces. In keeping with the sensibility of the space, signage is executed with simplicity and restraint, integrated into the building’s materials for unobtrusive, yet clear navigation. For navigational signage and room identifications, type is silkscreened onto interior surfaces or panels of blackened metal. The donor wall, located within the entry vestibule, was specially crafted in Venetian plaster with sponsor names cut in polished stainless steel and embedded by hand. Exterior building signage is cast into the concrete plinths of the landscaped forecourt.

Washington University commissioned architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson to design a 66,000-square-foot athletic complex for students and university athletes. We were commissioned at the start of the three-year design process to develop the building’s wayfinding strategy and design all signage. This included directionals, code signage and donor recognition. The client’s intent was to have a discreet signage system that felt integrated into the largely open-plan, naturally-lit space. With few interior walls, we inserted the directional signage into the vertical beams throughout the space. Since the building is the most modern on campus and the least formal (given its recreational use), we used a contemporary typeface in a vibrant shade of red – the signature color of the university’s sports teams – to capture the dynamic energy of the activities taking place in the space.