Project Overview
The Hermitage is a master planned residential community in South-western Sydney’s Camden Hills and the first planned community for Sekisui House in Australia. The Sekisui House development is committed to sustainable design and the ethos of creating homes that can grow and adapt with generations of users. Sekisui aims to work towards improving social, economic and residential values of the homes and the communities that they create.
The precinct will eventually contain 1800 premium home sites along with commercial and education facilities set in 120 hectares of golf course and over 26 hectares of open parklands. The landscape conceived by Hassell is based on design principles that reflect Sekisui’s vision including encouraging access to nature, respecting the existing qualities of the site, utilizing the landform as a definer and conserve and enhance natural ecosystems and associated processes. The parklands contain mature trees, revitalized waterways and 10 kilometres of cycle ways and shared pathways that link across the site to form wildlife corridors.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Project Commissioner
Sekisui House
Project Creator
Vince Frost ?CEO/ECD?Frost*collective
Project Team
Agency: Urbanite
Client: Sekisui House
Director: Vince Frost*?
Design Director: Bridget Atkinson /Carlo Giannasca?
Senior Designer: Charlie Bromley
Mid weight Designer: Katie Bevan
Brand Strategy: Catriona Burgess
Wayfinding Strategy: Joanna Mackenzie?
Account Director: Bianca Mediati/Kat Monk
Landscape Architect: Hassell
Signage: Albert Smith Signs
Project Brief
Our brief was to create an identification, wayfinding, information and interpretive system that responded to the on-site sales office wayfinding needs and the new home owners moving into the first land release along with the overall aim to create a communication and information platform for the community to enhance the daily experience of living at The Hermitage. The signage is a key element in the public domain and was used to strengthen the brand and communicate to residents and visitors the sites sustainable initiatives, history of the site and sympathy for the natural landscape.
Project Innovation/Need
Working on a large and geographically diverse area that is being developed over a 10 year timeframe, it was important to create a holistic signage family, with enough flexibility to respond to different topographies, uses and residents throughout. The system needed to be able to grow and be updated with the staging of development and communities of The Hermitage, enabling ownership and belonging. Located externally the signs needed to withstand the elements and be able to be updated on site as new residential areas and amenities are launched.
Design Challenge
The key to our design solution was referencing the company’s rich Japanese heritage and the developer’s commitment to the Japanese concept of Satoyama - man co-existing with nature. The primary construction system used in a Sekisui house consists off 5 bonded timber planes that together are earthquake resistant. This structural system and resulting form is the basis of the sign form design. The form achieves its structural strength through the vertical panels that create the post and the horizontal information panels that are bolted either parallel or perpendicular to the post through ‘cuts’ in the form. The individual post elements are finished in gently varying tones that reference the subtle shift in nature’s seasons, whilst the information panels are differentiated to reinforce the information categories displayed. On completion of the precinct the full colour range will be displayed as colours shift along the spectrum in response to landscape, season and usage – reflective of the journey through the site’s shifting landscape.
Sustainability
The sign forms are modular, designed for re-use and transportation to other locations on site as the precinct develops. New panels can be added to each sign form as required to respond to further wayfinding needs or interpretation requirements.
As Sekisui strives to ‘create homes and environments that are more than just comfortable places to live’ the signage aims to inform and delight whilst aiding in navigation and understanding on the site.
Wayfinding
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the ways people orient themselves in physical space, and navigate from place to place. Consideration given to signage and other graphic communication, clues in the building's spatial grammar, logical space planning, audible communication, tactile elements and provision for special-needs users.
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