A blurred person walks past a gold plaque mounted on a white wall. The plaque reads "tam̓əsəw̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre" and commemorates the official opening of Canada's first completed zero-carbon building design-certified aquatic and community centre in New Westminster on June 8, 2024. The plaque includes names of project contributors, including the mayor, city council members, design and construction teams.

təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre wayfinding

Location

New Westminster, BC

Our team designed signage and wayfinding at təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre to enhance its status as a jewel of the community.

Without any existing signage guidelines, our first step was to design a new standard for signage to be used across all the City of New Westminster’s Parks & Recreation facilities. That process began with seven site and facility audits, interviews, and dialogue with key staff to understand programming needs, ongoing challenges, and goals.

Disciplines

Areas of impact

Signage for the leisure pool paired with visibility graphics on a glass wall. Through the glass, blurred figures are sitting on a transfer ledge into the leisure pool.
A blurred hand touches a tactile floorplan of the facility's first level.

From this research, we designed a warm, flexible and consistent visual system to welcome new and returning visitors across New Westminster. Templates now exist for every possible sign type: building and hours, welcome signs, directional and orientational, identification, and regulatory. And graphic standards work well for both new and pre-existing facilities, bringing consistency while still allowing enough flexibility to tailor designs to locations.

For təməsew̓txʷ, we applied the new signage standards while taking inspiration from the architectural concept and interiors. Warm wood and brass tones pair with dark and contemporary contrasting colours, inspired by the city’s industrial past. Subtle form iconography and topographic patterning pays homage to the site’s lost ravine and nature surrounding the facility.

With accessibility and inclusivity as top priorities, tactile lettering and braille are featured throughout.

Exterior signage with the facility in the background. A person is walking along a sidewalk to the right.
Wavy visibility graphics on a glass wall, with a blurred figure passing down the hallway behind them.
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