Entro: Winner of World Design Awards 2022. In the midst of a global pandemic, Covenant House New York (CHNY) opened the doors of its new, purpose-built facility. Designed by FXCollaborative, the 80,000 square-foot 11-storey site provides food, shelter, and healthcare services to the City’s most vulnerable homeless, runaway, and exploited youth. The space is designed from the ground up to achieve the organization’s core mission: to provide an open and welcoming yet safe and secure environment; to celebrate community and never forget the individual; and to function in a way that is both easy to navigate yet flexible enough to allow for change.

Entro worked closely with Covenant House, FXCollaborative, and Envoie Projects to design a customized wayfinding and donor recognition program that aligns with these goals. From the outset of the project, we challenged ourselves with how our work could help to create a feeling of welcome, warmth, and respect, while looking for opportunities to connect people to the place they are in. Additionally, it was imperative that the design strategy was customizable and changeable in order to work for CHNY in what they do each day, as spaces were purposefully designed to have multiple uses.

Approach

We approached this project by looking to the organization’s history and culture. The new CHNY sits on the same site as the old one, which featured an iconic mural by Katie Yamasaki on one of the exterior walls. This mural, painted in 2011 in conjunction with 360 residents, was deeply personal to CHNY – not only was it used as a beacon to help people identify the building, the subjects depicted in the mural were the residents themselves, using their own words.

Unfortunately, the mural needed to be demolished along with the old building, but not before being thoroughly documented in photograph, which served as our inspiration. The donor wall, visible from the exterior, welcomes visitors to the main lobby and incorporates fragments of the mural photographs on dimensional rails, which follow the architectural pattern of the vertical wood rails of the feature stair in the lobby. This connection to the mural introduces themes of community and continuity, as well as the vibrant color palette we used for the entire wayfinding and interior program.

The donor wall also has a digital component. Nine different orientations, designed by Entro, tell the story of the artist, Katie Yamasaki. The story of the facility itself is also shared, along with donor updates. All orientations are bilingual (English and Spanish).

Color forms the basis of the wayfinding strategy at Covenant House, where each hue denotes a different area of the building, not only on the signage, but throughout the interior design. The bright, bold palette is welcoming, energizing and playful. Iconography for amenities and services further expand the color palette, using tints and shades of each color, resulting in a sophisticated yet playful sensibility throughout the space.

A key component of the program was fostering a sense of welcome and shelter for the residents using the space, no matter the duration of their stay. To achieve this objective, we isolated the color blue, which we used to identify private residential areas, demarking “your” private space for youth living in the building. As an additional level of customization and nod of respect towards each resident, we designed a changeable frame system that allows each person to display their own art adjacent to their room during their time at CHNY.

Beyond residential areas, flexible signage was required throughout the system. Many CHNY rooms have multiple functions and require identification signs that can be easily updated. Both the upper and lower segments of room signs are removable, held in place by magnets that are easily changed by staff as required.

To welcome the diversity of youth who visit CHNY, all signage is bilingual (English/Spanish) and ADA compliant. Key amenities and services are identified with icons which follow the same color palette as the rest of the wayfinding, allowing for visual comprehension beyond the two languages.

Result

The new Covenant House New York has been received with enthusiasm. The resulting signage and wayfinding program is vibrant, meaningful, welcoming, flexible, accessible and supports diversity. From a recent article in Architect Magazine: “The difference is night and day,” says Angela Howard, senior vice president of facilities and real estate at Covenant House. “We spent a lot of time with the architects and they spent a lot of time being thoughtful about designing a space based on what we needed.”

https://www.architectmagazine.com/project-gallery/covenant-house_o

Project Details
Firm
Entro

Architect/Designer          
Entro

Project Name
Covenant House New York Wayfinding and Donor Recognition

World Design Awards Category
Design Built

Project Location
New York

Project Team   
Anna Crider (Partner in Charge), Jessica Schrader (Senior Project Manager, Senior Designer), Lauren Kuzyk, Vanessa Tarasio, Cristina Paik (Designers), David Vanden-Eynden, Principal Emeritus

Country
United States

Photography ©Credit
©Adam Kane Macchia, Chris Cooper, Jessica Schrader

Entro: With a legacy dating back 50 years and a team of over 80 in offices in Toronto, Calgary, New York, Sydney and Zürich, Entro is a world leader in the field of branding and environmental design.

Entro uses design to connect people to place. We call on design to fuel a dialogue between users and the spaces they inhabit – from hospitals and transit hubs to museums, corporate and educational campuses, and throughout cities. Our work gives places identity and meaning; it makes complex places navigable; it reveals the history behind new places.

Our interdisciplinary team brings together expertise in fields spanning art to neuroscience. We offer design services in branding, wayfinding, signage, environmental graphics, and exhibit design.