Signs of Life

The Signs of Life studio worked directly with Griffis Sculpture Park by providing a plan for park-wide improvements with a focus on wayfinding and signage. This master planning exercise required students to look at the park at several different scales. Students analyzed how visitors are greeted at the front gates, observed the state issued highway and street signs for the park, and the scale of the small direction markers on the trails themselves. 

The studio began with the students taking a tour of the park with one of Larry Griffis Jr.’s children, spending the day at the park and sketching ideas for the creation of a relief sculpture. Students worked in one material to create a relief mold out of a secondary material, prior to exploring other cast materials. Students used the sculptural process to think about concepts of light/shadow or infill/void.

As the summer progressed, the studio collaborated on an extensive mapping and analysis of existing and past conditions of the park. They researched previous installations and versions of the park to try to identify methods of signage and wayfinding that have been effective. This informed their understanding of wayfinding challenges and current opportunities in the park and ultimately guided their collaborations to formulate a design strategy as a solution.

Students were challenged by the typologies of signage and wayfinding. They had a limited number of resources when trying to find successful wayfinding solutions within an environment like Griffis Park. These topics are not often taught within schools of architecture, and inspired students to reach into fields of communications, typography, art and design, and planning. Students decided to look internally within the park itself to develop their own system of wayfinding.

From their explorations of the park, students observed areas of interest that they felt could be used as identifiers in a wayfinding process. For example, a life size steel giraffe sculpture is placed at the onset of a field marking both the edge of the field and the start of the tree line facing the woods. It works to signify the entrance to a trail that leads visitors to a series of animal sculptures amidst the trees. Students found this giraffe to be an example of a wayfinding identifier. They revealed that seeing a piece of art that sparks interest would allow visitors to discover for themselves the rest of the work concealed in the woods. The giraffe and other identifiers were used as landmarks within the mapping of the park. 

To develop a deeper understanding of the work at the sculpture park, students put themselves into the minds of artists. They experimented with all types of materials, from sculpting with clay, creating rubber molds, melting metals, and pouring plaster and sand casting. The studio was pushed to understand and appreciate the materials of a working artist. These ideas were embedded throughout the studio to carry on the original goals of Griffis Park. Students cultivated and supported the human abilities of imagination and empathy through their design process. The culmination of work included the design of a new entrance sign for the park, mapping of the projects and their existing conditions within the park, a site plan for Rohr Hill, and detailed construction drawings for new signage installations within the park.

Students
Nicholas Blackwell, Dylan Fiscus, John Henning, Lydia Ho, Samantha Kalinski, Lisa Liang, Gartin Lin, Catie Shadic, Nathan Spangler, Nick Sturner, Benjamin Wemesfelder, Austin Wyles

Faculty
Jon Spielman

Term
ARC 406, ARC 606, Summer 2021 

Program
BS Arch, MArch