Wayfinding: Carrying on the Pan Am Games’ legacy

by all | 28 May 2015 10:01 am

By Peter Saunders
This summer, the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games will take place in Toronto and other parts of Southern Ontario, marking Canada’s largest international multi-sport event to date. Approximately twice the size of Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympic Games, the event has involved years of planning and millions of dollars in new investment. When the games are over, however, the purpose of such investment is to ensure a long-term legacy of facilities that will continue to be used by local residents and training athletes.

With that in mind, the 28,986-m² (312,000-sf) Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC) opened in September 2014 as an extension of the University of Toronto’s (U of T’s) Scarborough campus. Co-owned by U of T and Toronto’s municipal government, it represents not just the largest new construction project for the games, but also the largest investment in the history of Canadian amateur sport. It is designed to serve high-level athletes alongside local recreational and community groups and fitness centre members.

TPASC houses the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario (CSIO), two internationally sanctioned Olympic-size 10-lane 50-m (164-ft) long swimming pools, a dive tank, a four-court gymnasium, a rock-climbing wall, conditioning rooms, a 200-m (656-ft) indoor running track, studio spaces and a high-performance athlete testing centre. During the games, the venue will host swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, fencing and the swimming portion of the modern pentathlon. Before and after the games, it is the new home of the university campus’ department of athletics and recreation, which can now expand the number and types of instructional programs open to students, faculty and staff. As such, wayfinding signage will play an important role in guiding visitors through the new facility.

Telling a story
TPASC broke ground in September 2012 and was built by PCL Construction at an estimated cost of $205 million, funded by the university, the city, the Ontario government and the federal government.

“It was built under a public-private partnership (P3) model,” explains Wayne McCutcheon, principal for Entro Communications, a Toronto-based environmental graphic design (EGD) firm that worked on the project. “Our job was to tell a compelling story through the graphics.”

Besides McCutcheon, Entro’s team for the project included principal creative director and member of Sign Media Canada’s editorial advisory board (EAB) Udo Schliemann and designers Gerald Querubin and Raymundo Pavan. They began to work with PCL and NORR Architects in late 2011.

“We’ve never been involved with a project that was built so rapidly,” says McCutcheon. “After six months of design work, there was only one-and-half years to build this huge facility.”

As the project progressed, Entro specified three primary sign materials—opaque vinyl, aluminum and acrylic—and defined the facility’s typography style before designing building identification (ID), entrance, traffic, directory, electronic message centre (EMC), directional, emergency, departmental and room signage, among other elements within the system. The team consulted with the university and the city, which provided guidelines for signs
and graphics.

“It’s not just another U of T campus signage program,” says Schliemann, “but while our designs were somewhat inspired by and will complement the Pan Am Games, they were not Pan Am-centric. There’s more of a sense that the Pan Am branding will surround the building during the games.”

So, as Entro was not beholden to Pan Am brand standards, the designers were able to create a bold new look for the TPASC sign system. One of their points of inspiration was the building’s design by NORR’s David Clusiau, which featured ‘offset’ walls and façades.

“We were inspired by these forms in the architecture that resembled shifting ice, which led to our use of offset planes in our pylon designs,” says Schliemann. “The building and the sign system are synchronized visually. There’s also a water theme in our supergraphics, which feature abstracted blue patterns along the main corridor to the pool and changing area, as well was providing a backdrop for the diving boards, which will get a lot of airplay on TV. The graphics in the field house, by comparison, are more colourful, with red and orange tones.”

More than 1,000 signs
Gregory Signs & Engraving in Vaughan, Ont., was commissioned to create and install the signs. The contract was awarded in November 2013 and work
continued through the opening of the facility the following September, but the company’s preparation process began much earlier.

“Infrastructure Ontario sought concepts for the various facilities that would be needed for the 2015 Pan Am Games many years in advance,” explains David Grose, sales manager for Gregory Signs. “We got involved at that point with various groups submitting design-build tenders, where we suggested an appropriate budget for and amount of signage at each site. One of those groups was PCL Construction, which ended up submitting the winning bid for TPASC.”

So, after PCL worked with Entro and the architect to determine the right mix of signs for the facility, Gregory Signs was brought back on board.

“Our job was to turn conceptual designs into buildable signs,” says Grose. “We added support structures for hanging signs, verified French translations could be accommodated under English type and arranged fibre optic connectivity to the outdoor light-emitting diode (LED) screens.”

The company also had to pour concrete footings for pylon signs before the site was even landscaped, using ‘control points’ to determine the right locations and estimating intended pylon heights because the final grading of the earth was not yet finished.

“We had to stake them all out and make sure they were level,” says Grose.

The already rapid pace of the project did not slow down, as PCL had to turn the building over to the Pan Am committee by summer 2014, so it could be opened, operated and tested for a minimum of one year before the games.

“That was really cutting it close for signage,” says Grose, “especially since this system involved a unique variety of more than 1,000 different signs, from stop signs to high-definition (HD) outdoor screens and everything in between. And sometimes additional signs were needed beyond the original plan, even though the end date could not be changed.”

Gregory Signs continued installations as the building became ready, in some cases on unfinished surfaces to meet PCL’s schedule and occupancy requirements.

“Moving forward, PCL is no longer involved in the building, so we work directly with the Pan Am committee and TPASC’s operators,” Grose explains. “There is also a list of signs to be installed after the games.”

One advantage—and why PCL selected Gregory Signs in the first place—was the ability to handle almost all production in-house. Only photopolymer-based tactile signs featuring Grade 2 braille and digital signage displays were sourced from outside suppliers.

“If we hadn’t been able to handle as much of the work in-house, we may not have met the timeframe,” says Grose. “You have greater control of the schedule when you can control production internally.”

Shaping the landscape
As mentioned, while TPASC is now open and fully operational, the sign system continues to be updated. One of Grose’s most recent efforts has been to introduce TPASC employees to a specialized company that can train them to program the digital signage network.

“We’re not a programming company ourselves, so we got the right people in to help,” he says. “It’s a question of ongoing customer support. Not a lot of sign companies get involved to this level, but we’re happy to participate, as we don’t want to leave our clients with no means to take advantage of electronic displays to their fullest extent. And it’s great to be part of a state-of-the-art building that will help shape the Toronto landscape for years to come.”

Entro, for its part, is also overseeing the implementation of a broader urban wayfinding system for the games across Toronto, Hamilton, Milton, the Niagara Region and Minden Hills, Ont. The pace remains rapid, as the games will begin on July 10.

With files from Entro and Gregory Signs & Engraving. For more information, visit www.entro.com[5] and www.gregorysigns.com[6].

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/wayfinding-carrying-on-the-pan-am-games-legacy/

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