Woodhouse Supplies Integrated Signage System for Bristol's award-winning City-centre Shopping Centre

Cabot Circus, Bristol's £500 million city-centre shopping centre opened to widespread acclaim in late-September 2008 and looks set to establish a new standard of design for UK regional shopping centres. The project involved more than 20 different sign systems, totalling over 1800 individual signs, including 500 colour-coded car-park signs and 800 signs for back-of-house operations. Woodhouse supplied signage, seating and lighting for the new centre - including an innovative, fully integrated signage system, which helps to establish the centre's high quality identity.

A key part of fwdesign's philosophy is to try, where possible, to integrate signage with the environment. The most demanding example of this philosophy is the series of 13 free-standing information points, in stainless steel with vitreous enamel infill's in cyan blue, lime green and purple to give each precinct a visual distinction.

Positioned at key points around the site, the highly sculptural 3.3m signs have two sloping 'legs', linked by a tight upper loop of steel. A further detail is the street name sign, laser cut and pushed 2mm proud of the surface on each stainless steel foot. While half the signs have inline legs, the others are offset from the centre line - but in all cases their curved steel 'feet' have to run perfectly flush with the ground.

A combination of this complex design with sloping floors and undulating ground (only two out of 13 are truly horizontal) means that each individual unit has a different geometry and had to be designed to the millimetre by CAD. 'This degree of precision would frighten all but one or two manufacturers in the country,' says Roger Crabtree, 'but we were delighted with the results we got from Woodhouse… they are always prepared to go the extra mile to deliver what you intended.'

The folded 'ribbon' theme is repeated on a grand scale in the large-format graphics on the walls of the car-park. Screen-printed on 1.5m by 2.4m aluminium panels, mounted on three-quarter inch ply, for rigidity, they provide a dynamic splash of colour as visitors enter the centre from the car-park.

Perhaps the most prominent piece of signage for visitors arriving by car to the centre is a large, internally illuminated 'Cabot Circus' brand sign mounted on the wall of the centre's multi-storey car-park. The circular sign, custom-made by Woodhouse, is 4.8 metres (16 feet) in diameter and houses 100 x LED panels, each with 144 LEDs, which backlight the stretched PVC skin bearing the 'Cabot Circus' brand-name.

Result For the client

Cabot circus itself has garnered many awards since it's inception and tellingly the interesting 'ribbon' information points will now be rolled out to the nearby Broadmead shopping centre, to create a unity of style across the city's main retail environments.

Result For the designer

"The biggest level of satisfaction for us, as the designers, is that, working with Woodhouse, we have delivered a huge signage package that has moved little from the original concept. It is a very contemporary solution and sets a new benchmark in shopping centre wayfinding." Roger Crabtree - fwdesign