The designers developed a comprehensive environmental graphics, donor recognition, and wayfinding sign program for the renovation and expansion of the Columbia Law School, Law Library, and Law Review Buildings that responds to specific client needs, as well as the varied interior spaces of this 40,000-square-foot facility.

The building lobby is the main interior focal point. It rises 3 stories with stainless steel-clad columns and modulated wall panels and is the primary location for the Columbia Law School identification, as well as hundreds of donor names dating back to 1897.

Donor recognition during the past 100 years of the School had previously been randomly located throughout the buildings as carvings, plaques, applied letters, portraits, and the like. By designing a uniform system of individual laminated glass panels, the designers were able to centralize all donor names to a prominent location. The system itself is expandable and integral to the structural wall panel system used throughout the public spaces of the building, thereby becoming a metaphor for the literal support of the Law School.

The end result reflects a strong marriage between architecture and graphic design, revitalizing Columbia Law School’s identity and image in representing excellence in the legal profession and the quality education that is provided by faculty and administration.