Centennial College Downsview Campus Centre for Aerospace and Aviation
The new Downsview Park Aerospace Campus adaptively reuses one of the most remarkable sites in Canadian aviation history.
The Challenge
A building that was once the centre of aviation manufacturing and design, is transformed into an innovative learning institution.
In celebrating the site’s rich history, the new facility would introduce a bold graphic strategy that chronicles the site’s extensive past while looking to its reimagined future.
Project Vision
At a site and building scale, the tradition of ‘signing’ the aircraft hangar from the air has been reprised, marking the new hangar with the Centennial College logo as a ‘green roof sign’.
A translucent canopy that renders Centennial College’s logo in glass defines a bold new entry. The canopy is accompanied by a heritage interpretive graphic wall that runs along the primary entrance elevation. The outward face recollects the most prominent plane once manufactured in the facility, immediately connecting users to the site’s storied past through a graphic. The inverse of the graphic wall forms an information exhibit on the building’s history.
Stainless steel linear inlays, from sidewalk to building, provided in the site’s hardscaping to annotate chronological campaigns of building addition and demolition throughout the extensive modifications dating back to 1929.
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy / Doublespace Photography
Entry Ramp with Inverse of Heritage Interpretive Graphic Wall featuring Building History Timeline / Glass Canopy Detail
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
Main Hangar Signage
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
Main Directory Signage / Lobby and Student Social Lounge with Views into Main Hangar
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
Donor Wall
Design & Execution
Interior graphics take cues from colors, symbols, and patterns commonly found in aviation manufacturing, runway graphics, and airport wayfinding.
A large crane in the main hangar establishes the yellow color used throughout the facility’s graphic treatment. Upon entry, the user is greeted by marine-grade coated floor markings in a yellow diagonal crosshatch pattern leading to a freestanding directional monolith. The floor markings continue throughout the facility, with each treatment directing users to wall-mounted informational signage. A series of bespoke pictograms were created for room signs.
A large wind rose graphic has been inlaid into the existing floor in the main lobby as a marine grade coating application. The stylized graphic takes its cue from the wind rose meteorological graphic tool.
The lobby also displays dimensional donor signage as circular tubes, paralleling those found on an aircraft control board.
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
Directional Signage / Heritage Mural
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
Custom Room Signage
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
Electrical Lab Environmental Graphics: Control Panel / Hangar B Environmental Graphics: Global Fleet / Custom Room Signage and Heritage Mural
Slideshow
Centennial College Downsview Campus Centre for Aerospace and Aviation
Primary Building Entrance featuring Heritage Interpretive Graphic Wall and Glass Canopy
Entry Ramp with Inverse of Heritage Interpretive Graphic Wall featuring Building History Timeline / Glass Canopy Detail
Main Hangar Signage
Main Directory Signage / Lobby and Student Social Lounge with Views into Main Hangar
Donor Wall
Directional Signage / Heritage Mural
Custom Room Signage
Electrical Lab Environmental Graphics: Control Panel / Hangar B Environmental Graphics: Global Fleet / Custom Room Signage and Heritage Mural