Takuya Wakizaki - Motive Inc. · CLIENT: Totetsu Kogyo Co., Ltd.
The client, founded at the request of the former Ministry of Railways to maintain and reinforce Japan’s rail system, is a general construction company with far-reaching expertise in the field of rail-related construction. The designer Takuya Wakizaki, the founder of MOTIVE Inc., created a wayfinding system for the institute, which the client built to develop human resources. For the design motif, the designer used rail lines-the core identity of the client. Through the design, the designer strove to create a space that would help trainees feel a sense of pride in their work.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Due to the characteristics of the space, some of the rooms in the facility are in blind areas. The rail-line design marks flow lines to those rooms, offering affordances for spatial movement. In addition, the design team used rail scrap for the facility’s name sign and portions of the stairs to capture the company's personality with creative aesthetic accents.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Facility’s name sign - H174 x W2690
Rail line width - 60mm - Tags
- Wayfinding, Signage, Orientation Design, Environmental Design, Graphic
- Production Technology
- Facility’s name sign - Used rail scrap
Rail line-1 - Steel
Rail line-2 - PVC flooring
Typography - Floor marking film - Design Challenge
- Due to the characteristics of the space, some of the rooms in the facility are in blind areas. The rail-line design marks flow lines to those rooms, offering affordances for spatial movement. In other words, the rail-line design becomes a flow line. This line had to run through the building uninterrupted, and safety had to be taken to prevent users from stumbling. Since the rail lines were constructed by connecting the divided parts, severe dimensional accuracy is required. The rail lines' curves, intersections, branches, etc., were very difficult construction.
- Project Duration
- The project started in June 2019.
The project finished in December 2021.
Located in Ibaraki, JAPAN. - Operation Flow
- Rooms in blind areas or rooms that need to be accessed through narrow corridors are less likely to be recognized by users. With the rail-line design, users can see a destination in blind areas or beyond narrow corridors and change the inactive space into an active one.
- Research
- You can find animals' whereabouts, such as foxes, by following the footprints left on the snow-covered ground.
Many people will have had the experience of walking across the pedestrian crossing only on the white line as a child.
If multiple shapes are drawn on the ground, Hopscotch will start. These unknowingly acquired behavioural habits, which are difficult to prove chemically, can be a hint for designing a wayfinding system. The marks on the floor are great for informing, inducing, and controlling behaviour. - Inspiration
- Totetsu Kogyo Co., Ltd., founded at the request of the former Ministry of Railways to maintain and reinforce Japan’s rail system, is a general construction company with far-reaching expertise in the field of rail-related construction. For the design motif, the design team used rail lines-the core identity of Totetsu Kogyo, which continues to thrive in the rail sector.
- Image Credits
- All Images: Photographer Takeshi Shinto, 2021
- Patents
- Not applicable
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