Creating a sense of place
Johnson Gardens unites four buildings – Johnson Building, Courtyard Building, Sweeps Building, and Townhouse Building – under one brand. The site also includes a courtyard, garden, bike store, wellness space, and a roof garden.
Whilst each building has individual character, the owners were looking to unify the space to create a cohesive campus look and feel. The office campus wayfinding system and signage needed to enhance the sense of identity, so that the buildings looked like one site, with a consistent system and a site map at each entry point.
One identity for four buildings
The new brand identity is punchy and strong, so that’s where we took our initial inspiration – creating a loud and colourful end-of-trip area at the bike store. Following Arax Properties’ brand guidelines, we developed a wayfinding system to connect the campus, taking design cues – circles – from the iconic Johnson Building.
A workshop with the client revealed their desire for a strong focus on green space and gardens, which influenced our selected route. The green space by the courtyard is the garden – and it’s the link between all four buildings – so we recommended they call that area ‘The Gardens’.
Another of our recommendations was to support the identification of each building with a naming hierarchy. For example, an entrance is always named ‘Johnson Gardens’ and is then given its building-specific title. This supported the overarching brand, created consistency, but also maintained the uniqueness of each building.
