Yutian Village Guide Design

• Finalist 2021 

Yutian Village guide design is a community transformation activity led by ASSBOOK. We are responsible for the overall guide design of Yutian Village. Located in Luohu District, Shenzhen, Yutian Village is one of the urban villages in Shenzhen. Due to its ordinary
location, it has neither the influence of the historical environment nor the economic stimulation of the surrounding environment, so it has not formed a unique development style like Shuiwei, Xiasha, Gangxia, and other urban villages. However, in recent years, Yutian Village has gradually transformed from independent tenants to long-term
rental apartments under the organization of developers.

Agency

SURE Design

Practice Area

• Wayfinding 

Client

Yutian Village

Industry

• Urban + Civic 

Yutian Village lacks a basic identification system. Without it, each individual building lacks a geographical identification base. Therefore, express delivery, take-out service, and emergency help cannot be served with the help of the identification system. Meanwhile, a building without a number actually lacks a “name”. The process of assigning a number to each building is also the process of naming the building. A building with a name has an independent identity that does not require additional information transfer, which gives the residents a greater sense of security and belonging. Therefore, the process of naming is also a process of establishing dignity for the residents.

We have combined the environmental colors of the advertising signs in Yutian village with some cultural elements featuring the regional style in the Pearl River Delta to create a signage system for Yutian village with a high degree of recognition and highly relevant to the language of the environment. We hope that designers can step back their identity from the urban village environment and integrate their aesthetics into the environment, making the whole signages look as if it grew out of the village itself but featured systemic. We try to establish the most fundamental building number identification for Yutian Village with this guide system, thus establishing basic identification rules belonging to the geographical dimension.

Our design employs the most common signage technology, the simplest production process, the most durable and inexpensive materials, and the most commonly used lighting to create a “design aesthetic” that hardly seems to have been produced through exhaustive design. Therefore, designers will step back in front of their “work” to hide themselves in the shadows, hoping that villagers and users will soon adapt to new signages, making new signages a regular part of their daily lives. We hope to lengthen the time cycle of aesthetic penetration and implantation to reduce or even strip the demand for aesthetic identification, using functions as starting points. In general, in this project, we want to remove the process of “how design happens”.