Photos courtesy Entro
By Peter Saunders
Public-facing facilities are an opportunity to combine architecture and signage for multiple purposes. When the new MacNab Street Transit Terminal opened in 2011 in downtown Hamilton, for example, it represented more than an upgrade to the city’s public transit infrastructure by replacing an older building. It also marked a significant contribution toward revitalizing the city core.
Du Toit Architects, based in Toronto, designed the facility with minimal, clean lines to convey lightness and transparency. They added green roofs to reduce the urban ‘heat island’ effect, as well as metal grating screens to support ‘vertical gardens’ at street level. Their work won a Design Exchange (DX) award in an urban design category.
As for signage, Toronto-based environmental graphic design (EGD) firm Entro G+A Communications was tasked with developing a wayfinding system that would consolidate and simplify the hierarchy of bus schedules and other information for passengers in the busy, expanded terminal. As part of the revitalization effort, it was important for the terminal to become a more enjoyable, user-friendly environment for passengers year-round.
Entro used vibrant colours and oversized bus-route numbers to complement the building’s primarily neutral palette of galvanized steel, concrete and stained cedar. The numbers highlight each bus platform, while the colours suggest the traditional branding of the city’s transit division, the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR).
The facility’s windows were decorated with changeable graphics. And through a partnership with the Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH), an initiative was developed to refresh the terminal’s appearance periodically with art displays, rather than rely solely on out-of-home (OOH) advertising to make the space feel dynamic.
Simple, unembellished marquees were installed to identify the building along King and Main Streets. The colour scheme chosen for the terminal’s bus shelter signs and graphics amplified green, to echo the natural colours of the green roofs and other planters in the area.
The designers involved in the project say they were trying to set a higher standard for bus terminal design because, in the past, these spaces were too often built purely to meet functional needs, without the elements of strong urban design that can go a long way in encouraging locals to use and enjoy public transit.
