London Borough of Hackney
2008

Signage for a public building with complex use
Scheme design, RIBA Stage D, not realised

A public library and archive serves a wide range of visitors – from occasional drop-in visitors to customers with specific requests, from students needing to study quietly for their exams to pensioners wanting to read the local papers over a cup of tea. The signage of such a building should therefore be accessible to a large variety of audience groups, whilst serving one overall purpose: to help its users to navigate with ease, and assist them to find the way to their destinations quickly. And – if their destination is yet to be defined, to invite people to come in and browse.
In addition, consultation with library and archive staff pointed towards a strong requirement for the signage to be flexible. This entails that both position and content of many of the individual signs may change over time, which should be permitted by the sign system from the start. All types of change need to be easily carried out by library and archive staff.

With Oliver Klimpel
Lampshade designs by Cordula Kehrer