Eureka Carpark
Project Vision
With miles of concrete and cinder block as their palette, the emerystudio design team decided to have some fun with graphics for the Eureka Tower parking garage in Melbourne.
Inspired by the work of Swiss artist Felice Varini—whose perspective-defying installations look a lot like giant vector art superimposed on buildings or interior architectural spaces—the team designed colorful forms that are both two- and three-dimensional.
Using a projector technique for positioning, the design team painted key words/directions directly on the garage walls and floors Varini style. From different viewpoints, the supersized letterforms can be perceived as either abstract distortions or directional information. Using an anamorphic approach wherein the images seem distorted until the viewer’s vantage point is perfect, the words “In,” “Out,” “Up, ” and “Down” snap into alignment to convey information at key decision-making points along the way. For drivers, the result is more engaging than the typical boring journey through a colorless cement cavern.
Project Details
Simple, but very, very effective. We all use car parks and they are drab, dark, and basic environments. This solution transforms the space and cleverly uses words, dimension, and color to help you move around. It would have been typical to use large type and arrows, but this design works by breaking out of the box and claiming the whole landscape, so that you ignore your surroundings and are grabbed by the humor and boldness. It also seems to be a remarkably good investment, transforming a typically unpleasant environment into a space that commands your attention, for the price of about 5,000 gallons of petrol!
Design Team
Garry Emery (principal in charge), Axel Peemoeller, Job van Dort, David Crampton
Design Firm
emerystudio
Fabricators
Consolidated Graphics