Since 1979, the not-for-profit organization BRIC has been producing and promoting renowned arts and media programs throughout Brooklyn, including live music and performing arts, contemporary art exhibitions, and community media broadcasts. Headquartered in the former Strand Theatre, a historic 1918 building in downtown Brooklyn, BRIC House is a $35 million renovation that expands the organization’s space from 19,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet. It includes an urban lobby featuring contiguous panes of glass on the ground-level facade, as well as a 3,000-square-foot gallery, a 400 capacity performance space, artist studios, a state-of-the-art public access television studio, classrooms, a café, and a central lobby amphitheater called the “Stoop” which offers seating on its steps.

The designers created a comprehensive environmental graphics, donor recognition, and wayfinding sign program for the multi-disciplinary arts and media center. The program is based on deconstructing the parallelogram of BRIC’s existing logotype into various planes, perspectives, and dimensions for a series of directory, identification, and wayfinding signs that wrap around corners and door frames at dramatic angles. Wayfinding information displayed on walls overlaps with nearby doors so that information is always fully visible whether the doors are opened or closed. For the lobby’s amphitheater, the name “Stoop” is displayed at an upward diagonal on ascending stairs with the text fully legible when viewed at certain angels and appears as a decorative pattern when viewed at others. Large-scale graphic murals on the second floor display wayfinding information with a vivid, linear pattern inspired by BRIC’s logotype in shades of teal complementary to the organization’s color palette.

The designers also created a donor recognition wall based on an interlocking modular system outlined onto the wall in digital vinyl in a grid-like pattern. Cast resin panels displaying donor information are interspersed throughout the grid creating a 3-dimensional honeycomb pattern with flexibility to periodically add more donor names.