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The City of Gladstone, Queensland, has recently seen a major revival of its waterfront, with the completion of the initial stages of the Gladstone Coal Exporters Maritime Precinct at the newly named East Shores.
The vision for the city of Gladstone’s most treasured physical asset, it’s linear stretch of waterfront, was to create an expanse of parkland which contours the shoreline and responds to the needs of the community and it’s specific user groups. The Gladstone Coal Exporters Maritime Precinct offers recreational facilities, green space, and a strong reference to the past, present and future of the city’s maritime industry.
The Precincts main channel of circulation is located along its shoreline, this provides an opportunity for visitors to engage with the water’s edge via a children’s water-park and fishing jetties.
Within the Precinct, Dotdash have created a family of signage that is both bold in form and bright in colour, to express a notion of fun and recreation with a particular focus on children and family.
The design makes reference to the sites history of maritime industry in both form, scale and material. In particular, industrial qualities of laser cut metal and large scale sculptural silhouettes were explored and applied. Further inspiration is drawn from various maritime artefacts which have been reclaimed and placed throughout the site.
Locational maps, which have been integrated into signage, display illustrative figures of people engaging in a variety of activities, to again reaffirm the precinct’s strong user focus and spirit of fun and leisure. These maps aim to aid in the visitors cognitive mapping of the site, by highlighting landmarks and key facilities.
While the Precinct celebrates growth and development in the City of Gladstone, it also explores the maritime history of the site with an Interpretive Centre and Maritime Museum in development for Stage 2. To further highlight points of interest, Dotdash have produced a series of interpretive signage which allows visitors to engage and appreciate, displaying information on the history of the site and surrounding natural environment.
The key aim for the family of signage was flawless integration into the site via a collaborative process with all design practices involved. A single vision which expressed a sense of recreation, family, history and community was embodied in each design component. These included wayfinding elements, architectural structures, public artwork, and landscape design, to create a strong and evident design outcome.
Client Hutchinson Builders Pty Ltd / Urbis
Project Team Heath Pedrola, Peter Rudledge, Despina Macris, & Mark Ross.
