Design Challenge and Design Ideas

Building Change is a collaborative effort of all six architecture schools in the Republic of Ireland. Together, they are committed to providing education in climate-ready architecture to their students and in doing so addressing the implications of Government policy on climate change and housing. The design had to have simplicity and clarity, we had to really consider how this identity would sit with the identities of the 6 participating universities and well as how our decisions effected what the brand’s carbon footprint would be. A core part of the challenge for the website was creating a something that would not only be sustainable but also something that could be accessible and useful for users in communicating the story of building change.

www.buildingchange.ie

How the brief was fulfilled

A core part of the deliverables was a meticulously designed and developed website for Building Change that communicated the project’s motivations and intentions while remaining aligned with the sustainability principles that underpin the initiative.
Usability on the site was critical, and through workshops with all key stakeholders, user research and card sorting, we landed on a structure that matched our target users’ mental models. We kept the navigation simple, ensuring it is always accessible and users can reach where they need to be within 1/2 clicks/taps. There are spaces for showcasing current work and upcoming events and an overview of the courses on offer within each partner university. In terms of design, keeping sustainability at the forefront of our minds from the start, our approach centred around cleverly using our colour and graphic patterns via SVG rather than relying too heavily on imagery or video to keep file sizes down while creating interesting visual compositions.
The development approach was just as important. Along with hosting the site with a Green provider, the code had to be kept as light and minimal as possible. This meant leveraging minification techniques and static page caching to reduce server requests to an absolute
minimum and achieve an A carbon rating. (source: www.websitecarbon.com)
The design concept is based on the idea of biomimicry; this is the emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature to solve complex human problems. ‘Biomimicry’ is derived from Ancient Greek meaning life and imitation. From this starting point, we looked at voronoi patterns that appear everywhere in nature – including the veins of a leaf, cracked mud, giraffe skin and foamy bubbles. The pattern represents an adaptable, and everchanging approach that is designed using nature-based systems. These strong, adaptable and resilient structures are frequently adopted in architecture, therefore ultimately we took the voronoi pattern as the inspiration for the brand identity. The UI uses a system of infinite graphic patterns to add visual interest, brand recognition, house imagery and divide text. The brand is designed to be digital-first with dynamic animated applications and rollout across multiple digital touchpoints.