The Village Scalabrini wayfinding system was conceived as the cornerstone of the project's identity. With a community and social vocation, it was essential to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere in the common spaces while working within a tight budget. Design principles gradually shifted toward signage as the primary vehicle for giving the project its soul.
The signage settles on the walls like votive icons. Inspired by calendar icons known as Menaions or Menologia, wooden frames play with the layering and superposition of geometric elements, symbolically evoking the stations of the cross and stylistically echoing the church's central stained glass window. The system unfolds across apartment numbers, directional signage, and a large lobby logo carved in solid oak plywood, this time reproducing the complete form of the church's main stained glass window.
Composed entirely of white oak plywood with three-level CNC cutting, the signage plays with relief and negative space, once again drawing from the language of stained glass, where glass is cut from mass and reassembled. Our graphic team hand-drew every number, creating a custom typography where the stacking of forms and plates generates a typographic play that extends from the material into the space it inhabits.