On the Boards: Lane Community College Downtown Campus

After 30 years in downtown Eugene, Lane Community College's Downtown Campus will have a new state of the art facility combining academic programs and student housing with community spaces. We met with SRG Architects yesterday to kick off our participation in the design process for "the building that teaches." Targeted for LEED platinum, the building design is intended to both demonstrate and teach sustainable building strategies.

Karen, Mike and Elizabeth met with Kent Duffy, Louise Foster, Tim Grinstead and Jon Wiener at SRG to review drawings, renderings and floorplans as we brainstormed wayfinding and interpretive graphics for the new building.

We also brought lots of sign samples and a slide show of relevant projects to stimulate discussion.

Tim is demonstrating the metal cladding panels for the building exterior. We spent a lot of time visualizing building identification signage and its relationship to street trees and sight lines.

We were especially taken with the stainless cabling for the stair railings - surely it could be jewelry for more than a building!

On the Boards: Chemeketa Specialty Recognition

Scott Myers of Center Pointe Signs stopped by our office with proofs of digitally printed headers for specialty recognition signage at Chemeketa Community College's new Health Sciences Building in Salem. Printed on clear vinyl, the graphics are subsurface laminated to acrylic and then backed with opaque vinyl. We had specified white opaque backers for photographic clarity but when we saw the proofs, the images were not "singing" to us. We asked Scott to peel off the white vinyl (photo below) so we could try some different backing materials. Pulling materials from our resource room, Mike, Karen and Abby began experimenting immediately (above).


Silver vinyl, shown on the left half of samples above and below, provided the needed sparkle to the images.